Computer viruses have finally made it to where no computer virus has ever gone before – the international space station (ISS).

The computer virus Gammima.AG now has the unique distinction of being the first piece of unwanted code orbiting the Earth, as the National Aeronautical Space Administration (NASA) confirmed that laptops carried by astronauts aboard the ISS in July were infected with the virus.

The computer worm was first detected back on Earth in August 2007. It infects computers to steal login names for popular online games. The virus targets around 10 online games, such as Maple Story, HuangYi Online and Talesweaver. These are popular mostly in the Far East. Once it has stolen the login details, Gammima.AG then tries to send them back to a central server.

NASA has now said that the worm has been quarantined by security software on 25 July. Two laptops were said to have been infected by the virus, and the source of the infection is suspected to be a memory device that was plugged into both computers.

The infected laptops were being used by astronauts to send and receive email, and store data for some nutritional experiments.

NASA also clarified that the laptops were not hooked to any of the space stations' command and control systems, or to the Internet, and did not impact operations aboard the space station.

The space station's crew is reported to be working with teams on the ground to eradicate the virus and take preventive action to avoid a recurrence.

The International Space Station orbits the Earth once every 90 minutes, and is locked into its orbit around 217 miles above the planet's surface. The ISS does not have a direct connection to the internet, and all data transmitted to the space station is scanned before being sent up.

The ISS is a joint project between NASA, the European Space Agency and space agencies of Canada, Russia and Japan. It has been continuously inhabited by astronauts since 2000.