Mysterious cyberatta. 10 Observatories Watching the Cosmos Disabled: What is known
Subscribe not to miss the latest and most intrusive news from the world of science! Truly mysterious events have taken place in the last few weeks, as unknown hackers have been attacked by the main computers in the Dzhimini North Observatories for some reason in Hawaii and Dzhamin South in Chile. This led to the fact that large telescopes have failed. Astronomers lose their time allocated for space, and cybersecurity experts ask why hackers attacked these objects.
According to NoirLab, the US National Scientific Fund Coordination Center had to disable 8 telescopes in other Chile observatories. The suspension of telescopes has already led to the stopping of a number of international projects and important scientific research. Cybersecurity experts now take all measures to prevent this, because it is necessary to return the observatories to work as soon as possible.
NoirLab did not provide any information on this issue and did not report whether the hackers were redempted for the return of control over the observatories. The Center's staff are known to work around the clock to bring the telescopes to work. The longer the telescopes remain disconnected, the more astronomers are worried. Numerous international projects and depend on the data of ground telescopes.
Many observations from the Earth have a clear timeframe when a particular object is in the best place to observe the ground. If this time is missed, it will take a very long time, because there is a huge turn of scientists who want to use certain telescopes for their scientific work. Many studies can be too late, scientists say, and valuable results will not be obtained.
The amount of losses caused to cyberattacks is not even known, and some cybersecurity experts believe that unknown hackers could not know that they attack the computers of the observatories. This situation is very surprised by scientists, because few people expected such a large -scale incident. "It's all very strange.
But most importantly, I do not know how my scientific supervisors will come to the fact that I will tell them:" I don't have all the data, computers have broken hackers, "says postgraduate student Luis Welbenks from the University of Arizona University , USA. For beginner researchers such as Welbensk, a stop of research can have very negative consequences.