Cyber Attacks Target World’s Most Sophisticated Telescopes: Gemini South and North Observatory Hacked

KOMPAS.com – A number of world astronomical observatory facilities experienced incidents of cyber attacks. This attack also attacked the two most sophisticated telescopes in the world, namely the Gemini South and North Gemini telescopes.

The incident was initially reported by the National Science Foundation’s National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory (NOIRLab) research laboratory belonging to the United States (US) National Science Foundation educational institution.

According to NOIRLab, the cyber attack occurred on August 1, 2023. Because of this attack, the two advanced telescopes were unusable, and NOIRLab temporarily suspended the operations of the Gemini South telescope in Chile and Gemini North in Hawaii.

Also read: NASA Has a New Telescope to Search for Extraterrestrial Life

Operations of other telescopes have also been suspended, including Cerro Tololo in Chile.

Following the incident, NOIRLab contacted cybersecurity experts to get some of the world’s most advanced telescopes back into operation.

“Our staff is working closely with cybersecurity experts to get all affected telescopes and our website back up and running as soon as possible,” said NOIRLab’s official statement published on the lab’s official website.

The laboratory also disconnected the network at the Cerro Tololo telescope and the SOAR telescope as of August 9 as a preventive measure so that the attacks would not have further impacts.

As of August 24, the problem of the attack had not been resolved. So far, it is not known with certainty where the source of the attack came from and the nature of the cyber attack that attacked a number of the world’s most sophisticated telescopes.

NOIRLab said it was still investigating. During that process, the laboratory also stated that it would be careful to provide information about attacks.

The incident occurred shortly after the US National Security Center (NCSC) published a bulletin warning US space companies and research organizations of the threat of cyberattacks.

Also read: Hubble Space Telescope Uses This Camera for Photographs of Galaxies

According to the bulletin, foreign spies and hackers recognize the importance of commercial space to the US economy and national security. Therefore, space support facilities are no less important for the US.

Last year, a cyber attack disrupted the operation of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) telescope in Chile. In addition, the US space agency, NASA, is also not spared from being the target of hackers.

NASA has been attacked several times, for example in 2021, when this organization was hit by an attack called SolarWinds. This term refers to an attempted attack allegedly led by Russia, compiled by KompasTekno from Space, Monday (4/9/2023).

Get selected news updates and breaking news every day from Kompas.com. Let’s join the Telegram group “Kompas.com News Update”, how to click the link https://t.me/kompascomupdate, then join. You must first install the Telegram application on your cellphone.

2023-09-04 08:00:00
#Hackers #attack #sophisticated #telescopes #world #Kompas.com