CERN hacked - atom smasher safe...

Hackers claim there’s a black hole in the atom smashers’ computer network

A group calling itself the Greek Security Team left a rogue webpage describing the technicians responsible for computer security at the giant atom smasher as “schoolkids” — but reassuring scientists that they did not want to disrupt the experiment.

The hackers appear to have targeted the computer system of the Compact Muon Solenoid Experiment, one of the four detectors that will be analysing the progress of the experiment.

www.timesonline.co.uk...

Another LHC thread... but this is something I never really considered, and seemingly the folks and CERN didn't either - security.

Of course it would be impossible (I hope) to remotely access the LHC, but I'd expect the outcome would at least be a little upsetting for the scientists involved.

[edit on 13-9-2008 by mattguy404]

Wow, pretty scary that a group of individuals was able to hack into CERN's systems. Luckily for CERN, the hackers "say" that they weren't trying to disrupt anything. I would have thought that a place like CERN would be at the forefront of computer security, but obviously not.

OMG ! That would be the worst terrorist attack ever. I do hope they have stepped up security now.

You should google it. CMS CMSMON hacked. It is really insane that AFP in the first place and then the Times printing it produce so much panic-mongering just because of really bad journalism, lots of sensationalism by the hackers, and zero research on the matter.

Not the LHC has been hacked, nor its "operating system" (how funny, do you really believe that such a machine has an "operating system" - don't you rather think that such a machine is controlled by a whole bunch of servers, sensors and control units that usually run either UNIX, Linux or Windows...), nor has there been an intrusion into the closed network of the CERN.

Rather, the hackers - proud as they are they do have published it on the Internet - have hacked up a very simple web server, called CMSMON, that displays (and ONLY displays) monitoring data of one of the four big detectors at the LHC, the CMS (Compact Muon Solenoid). This is not a "scary" experiment, it is a detector for extremely small particles. It is only rather big in size, but this has the simple reason to be able to really "catch" such small particles it is ment to detect.

So basically just a "monitor" that was ment for PUBLIC access has been hacked. Sad, that the press worldwide seems to simply copy-paste without even switching on their brains. Sad sad sad.

Ungh... hackers break into networks to prove they could do it, not to do damage.

They did exactly what all hackers do. Get past security, and leave a note bragging that they did it.

I've written many articles on hackers, and their ethics, but the layman will always confuse them with script kiddies, and corporate thieves. The layman will never understand why hackers hack.

They have no interest in doing damage. Doing damage contradicts the reasons they hack in the first place... an intellectual pursuit of what they can do, not what can be destroyed.

To a hacker, a security system is merely a posed challenge. A game of sorts. "Here's the impassable wall, now try and pass it."
They love these challenges. But once they've bypassed security, they have no interest in what's inside, that wasn't the point of the hack, the point of the hack is to let the security admin know you beat their challenge.