Hackers have mounted an attack on the Large Hadron Collider, raising concerns about the security of the biggest experiment in the world. By Roger Highfield. Have Your Say: Does the LHC need a new name? Full coverage of the Large Hadron Collider atom smasher The LHC: Your questions answered | CERN helps us understand the world Glossary | LHC Facts | How it works As the first particles were circulating in the machine near Geneva where the world wide web was born, 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 schoolkids."
However, despite an ominous warning "don't mess with us," the hackers said 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 scientists behind the £4.4 billion "Big Bang" machine had already received threatening emails and been besieged by telephone calls from worried members of the public concerned by speculation that the machine could trigger a black hole to swallow the earth, or earthquakes and tsunamis, despite endless reassurances to the contrary from the likes of Prof Stephen Hawking. The website - www.cmsmon.cern.ch - can no longer be accessed by the public as a result of the attack. advertisement 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. If they had hacked into a second computer network, they could have turned off parts of the vast detector and, said the insider, "it is hard enough to make these things work if no one is messing with it." Fortunately, only one file was damaged but one of the scientists firing off emails as the CMS team fought off the hackers said 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 analysing 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." "We have several levels of network, a general access network and a much tighter network for sensitive things that operate the LHC," said Gillies. "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. The hacking attempt started around the time that the giant machine was about to circulate its first particles, under the spotlight of the world's media.
Kontrollraum des Large Hadron Collider

 Der neue Teilchenbeschleuniger Large Hadron Collider (LHC) des CERN musste am gestrigen Donnerstag nach Problemen mit dem Kühlsystem abgeschaltet werden. Das Kühlsystem war wegen „Problemen mit der Elektrizität“ ausgefallen, so ein Sprecher des CERN. Das Problem sei aber mittlerweile gelöst, und der Large Hadron Collider werde wieder hochgefahren.

Der Teilchenbeschleuniger wurde gebaut, um Protonen oder andere Bestandteile von Atomkernen auf eine Geschwindigkeit nahe der Lichtgeschwindigkeit zu beschleunigen und dann aufeinander prallen zu lassen. Dazu ist eine Kühlung der Anlage auf Temperaturen erforderlich, die in der Nähe des absoluten Nullpunktes (minus 273,15 Grad Celsius) liegen. Zur Gewährleistung der Funktion des Teilchenbeschleunigers wird die Anlage auf eine Temperatur von minus 271,3 Grad Celsius (1,85 Kelvin) gekühlt.

Vor wenigen Tagen soll nach Berichten britischer Tageszeitungen außerdem ein an die Öffentlichkeit angeschlossenes Computernetzwerk für eines der Experimente des LHC gehackt worden sein. Dabei hatten die Hacker Zugriff auf die Website www.cmsmon.cern.ch; die Hacker hinterließen dort angeblich eine griechische Botschaft, welche die Sicherheitstechniker am CERN als „einen Haufen von Schulkindern“ bezeichnete.