Hackers Break Into One Of World’s Important Telescopes, Forcing It To Go Offline
Up on a plateau in Chile sits the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) Observatory, one of the world’s most powerful and vital radio telescopes. Unfortunately, while it might be able to spot galaxies out in the unknown, it was not able to spot hackers infiltrating its systems until it was too late.
The cyber break-in has caused the telescope and its website to go entirely offline, as well as its email system, as it scrambles to fix the issue and relaunch itself. This, in turn, disrupted work for the 300-odd people working at the observatory and scientists worldwide who depend on ALMA for information.
ALMA Services Affected by Cyberattack | Last Saturday, October 29, at 6:14 AM, the ALMA observatory in Chile suffered a cyberattack on its computer systems, forcing the suspension of astronomical observations and the public website.
— ALMA Observatory📡 (@almaobs) November 2, 2022
ALMA was first set up in 2013 and quickly became an essential source of information in astronomy. It has 66 high-precision antennas, each ranging a width of 40 feet in diameter.
In 2019, ALMA had the honor of helping capture the first image of a black hole as it teamed up with radio observatories worldwide to form the Event Horizon Telescope.
The telescope has proven itself to be an invaluable member of the science community as it can capture the light of cooler substances in the cosmos, such as gas and dust. In fact, it was the first to identify “phosphine” in Venus’ atmosphere.
With all that in mind, ALMA had to thank its lucky stars that no critical information got leaked, nor did it lose any data during the attack.
The culprits have yet to be apprehended as the team is still trying to figure out who and how it took place.
Outside of that, the observatory has noted that as it is still working on getting up and running, there is no estimated date for when it will be back online.
Given the nature of the episode, it is not yet possible to estimate a date for a return to regular activities. We are thankful for the support across the ALMA partnership (@TheNRAO, @ESO, and @prcnaoj_en) and apologize for any inconveniences resulting from the recovery efforts.
— ALMA Observatory📡 (@almaobs) November 2, 2022
[via Futurism and BleepingComputer, Photo 156403192 © Christian Offenberg | Dreamstime.com]
