Half-a-Dozen Files Successfully Hacked From CERN
“There seems to be no harm done. From what they can tell, it was someone making the point that CMS was hackable,” James Gillies, spokesman for Cern, told the Daily Telegraph. “It was quickly detected. We have several levels of network, a general access network and a much tighter network for sensitive things that operate the LHC.”
Greek hackers took on an entirely new role when they breached the CERN network one week after the physics network circulated its first beam of particles. With the monitoring system’s detector system (CMSMON) compromised, half a dozen files were able to be uploaded by Greek hackers on September 9th and 10t. With hackers getting into the Compact Muon Solenoid Experiment (CMS), the CERN team scrambled to see how many other files were uplifted from the LHC. The area hacked monitored the CMS software system
Leaving a file which read “GST: Greek Security Team. We are 2600-don’t mess with us.”Thankfully, the hackers were unsuccessful in their ventures, and according to Yahoo were “one step away from the computer control system of one of the extra large detectors of CERNS’s LHC—a huge magnet that weighs 12,500 tons, 21 meters in length, and 15 meters wide/high.”
Even though the hacking attempt was unsuccessful, it has raised concern about the security of the largest experiment in the world, and how easily it was hacked only one week after its activation. The website which was hacked, http://www.cmsmon.cern.ch can no longer be accessed by the public due to the attempted hacking job. Scientists shut down the website as they were afraid another hack job may hack into another computer which could actually turn off parts of the detector.
The half a dozen files that were uplifted by the hackers only damaged one file of CERN, with the hacking being actively fought by the CMS team. The CMS is considered one of the four eyes of the experiment, which is necessary to analyze the fallout of the Big Bang. Approximately 2,000 scientists along with another scientific team is responsible for the entire project, with answering emails consisting of, ” “We are a very visible site,” he said, adding that of the 1.4 million emails sent to CERN yesterday, 98 per cent was spam. When the hacking attempt began, LHC was preparing to circulate its first particles, with the next day spent for the team member searching for the half-a-dozen files that had been uploaded by the Greek hackers.
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