Hackers shut down 2 of the world's most advanced telescopes

[Admin]

The U.S. National Science Foundation reported that a cybersecurity incident has temporarily shut down operations at its Gemini North Telescope in Hawaii and Gemini South Telescope in Chile.

Hackers shut down 2 of the world's most advanced telescopes : Read more

 

[Unclear Engineer]

I sincerely hope that assets like Hubble and Webb telescopes are securely protected, both from the Internet-based hacking that all sorts of national, corporate and private entities engage in, and the potential for jealous nation states to get directly into their coms with "anti-satellite" techniques.

 

[Barkydoo]

Wouldn't you think that by now people would figure out a way to keep this from happening? Even my stuff is compartmentalized and locked. Would be hackers would be up against an entire army of b.s. to even get part way in let alone do any damage to me.

I'm perplexed. Or....or.....it is an inside job which could be incredibly useful if you needed a scapegoat for some other reason....let's say a financial fraud that the telescope people pulled on their books to abscond with some donated money ...... remember simplest answer is usually the correct answer. "OH my!!! Lions and tigers and bears....we've been hacked!!! Oh my!!

 

[billslugg]

They went down a month ago, 38 telescopes out of commission, no visible progress, no projections.
In any computer system it should always be possible to cut the power, wait for caps to discharge, air gap, reboot with physical media, reformat the drive, install backup from physical drive. You lose everything you did since the last backup. Rank speculation? It was all in the cloud and it all got encrypted. Probably way, way too much to fit onto a memory stick.

 

[Unclear Engineer]

It is not impossible to hack even air-gapped systems, as Iran found out when its nuclear enrichment centrifuges were damaged by a hack.

But, I agree that too many people in places that should be considering the potential for hacking are not doing that, or at least not doing it well enough.

Considering how costly something like the Webb telescope is, I hope that the people who are using it to acquire astronomy data understand that their data is a prime target for ransom encryption.

Considering how much money was spent on the telescope itself, I would think that NASA would set up an air gapped repository for all of the data acquired in a physically secured location, with strict control of physical and electronic access. But, my experience with government computer systems is that they are repeatedly farming-out control to the lowest commercial bidder, so they are always just getting off the toe of the learning curve of "the new guys".

 

[billslugg]

Stuxnet was delivered via memory stick. When you recover a compromised system it is important to isolate it from any outside inputs before you boot it up. Once up, this system can't run air gapped. 34 of the telescopes are run remotely.

 

[Unclear Engineer]

Bill, My post was in response to Barkydoo, who seems to think that it is easy to keep hackers from penetrating a system, and thus thinks it is most likely an inside job with the hacking story being used as a cover excuse. (post # 3).

 

[billslugg]

Your response was immediately after I discussed the subject. When you do that, you will be assumed to be replying to that post, not some other post.

 

[Helio]

It wouldn't shock me if some cyber punks were showing-off their "great computer skills". What is the resale value of the information? [Ok, they may have snagged some useful data for military use (e.g. tracking), but was this their intent?]

It's likely that the cost for down time is in the tens of thousands of dollars, so if the hackers are caught, will they be required to pay for their costly damage? If so, and made public, "smart" hackers might act smarter.

 

[billslugg]

If they are caught and if there is an extradition treaty then they might be brought in for trial, as this is a felony in the US, at both state and federal levels. If identified they can be sued in civil court for damages, any US assets could then be used to pay off the claims. It is very rare to find hackers as they cover their tracks well. If a ransom is extracted via Bitcoin then, somewhere down the line, someone will try and convert one of the coins to cash and then they got 'em.

 

[Denny_Crane's_Interwev]

China, North Korea, Russia, Iran, one or more of them acting in concert, they should be considered the primary suspects.

Common sense tells me I'm correct.

 

[Unclear Engineer]

We have not been given any details about this hack, so it is useless to speculate about who did it or why. If there was data ransom involved, it could be any number of criminals from any number of nations and not necessarily related to those nations except for lack of extradition treaties with the U.S. If there was no ransom involved, it was probably some group that thinks it is sport. I doubt that national actors like Russia would be interested in hacking astronomy telescopes, but might be interested in hacking the NASA Deep Space Network that communicates with space probes and some satellites.

 

[Denny_Crane's_Interwev]

We have not been given any details about this hack, so it is useless to speculate about who did it or why. If there was data ransom involved, it could be any number of criminals from any number of nations and not necessarily related to those nations except for lack of extradition treaties with the U.S. If there was no ransom involved, it was probably some group that thinks it is sport. I doubt that national actors like Russia would be interested in hacking astronomy telescopes, but might be interested in hacking the NASA Deep Space Network that communicates with space probes and some satellites.

*it is useless to speculate about who did it*

Spies and hackers are targeting the US space industry: report

The warning comes as the U.S. space economy is predicted to reach $1 trillion by 2030.

www.space.com