Hackers who hit "Big Bang" machine's website mock its "bunch of school kids"
security
London, September 13 : The security of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world's
biggest scientific experiment, is in danger, with hackers mounting an attack on the
systems of the mega machine.
The LHC is the world's largest and the most powerful particle accelerator, located near
the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva, Switzerland.
According to a report in the Telegraph, as the first particles were circulating in the
machine near Geneva where the world wide web was created, a Greek group hacked into the
facility, posting a warning about weaknesses in its infrastructure.
Calling themselves the Greek Security Team, the interlopers mocked the IT used on the
project, describing the technicians responsible for security as "a bunch of school
kids."
However, despite an ominous warning "don't mess with us," the hackers said that they
had no intention of disrupting the work of the atom smasher.
"We're pulling your pants down because we don't want to see you running around naked
looking to hide yourselves when the panic comes," they wrote in Greek in a rambling note
posted on the LHC's network.
The official website of the LHC - www.cmsmon.cern.ch - can no longer be accessed by the public as a result of the attack.
Scientists working at Cern, the organisation that runs the vast smasher, were worried
about what the hackers could do because they were "one step away" from the computer
control system of one of the huge detectors of the machine, a vast magnet that weighs
12500 tons, measuring around 21 metres in length and 15 metres wide/high.
According to an insider, "If they had hacked into a second computer network, they could
have turned off parts of the vast detector."
Fortunately, only one file was damaged, but one of the scientists firing off emails as
the CMS team fought off the hackers said that it was a "scary experience".
The hackers targeted the Compact Muon Solenoid Experiment, or CMS, one of the four
"eyes" of the facility that will be analyzing the fallout of the Big Bang.
The CMS team of around 2000 scientists is racing with another team that runs the Atlas
detector, also at Cern, to find the Higgs particle, one that is responsible for mass.
"There seems to be no harm done. From what they can tell, it was someone making the
point that CMS was hackable," said James Gillies, spokesman for Cern. "It was quickly
detected," he added.
"We have several levels of network, a general access network and a much tighter network
for sensitive things that operate the LHC," said Gillies.
--ANI
