Hackers shut down 2 of the world's most advanced telescopes
It's unclear exactly what the nature of the cyberattacks were or from where they originated.
Some of the world's leading astronomical observatories have reported cyberattacks that have resulted in temporary shutdowns.
The National Science Foundation's National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory, or NOIRLab, reported that a cybersecurity incident that occurred on Aug. 1 has prompted the lab to temporarily halt operations at its Gemini North Telescope in Hawaii and Gemini South Telescope in Chile. Other, smaller telescopes on Cerro Tololo in Chile were also affected.
"Our staff are working with cybersecurity experts to get all the impacted telescopes and our website back online as soon as possible and are encouraged by the progress made thus far," NOIRLab wrote in a statement on its website on Aug. 24.
This isn't the first time that astronomical observatories have been the target of cyberattacks. In Oct. 2022, hackers disrupted operations at the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile, and NASA has been the victim of cyberattacks for years. In 2021, the agency was affected by the worldwide SolarWinds breach that NASA leadership called a "big wakeup call" for cybersecurity.
https://www.space.com/noirlab-gemini-north-south-telescopes-hacked-cybersecurity