THE International Meteor Organization (IMO), a nonprofit that coordinates and publishes amateur and professional observations of meteor phenomena, says a cyberattack has dealt a “critical blow” to its ageing infrastructure. Much of the organisation’s website is offline, and the IMO expects several weeks of partial downtime while it moves to new infrastructure and services.
The disruption affects access to the IMO’s databases of meteor and fireball observations, which contain text, photographs and videos and are widely used by researchers and observers. The organisation said it is prioritising fireball reports during the outage, directing users to a dedicated reporting service, and is sharing some information on Facebook. The IMO, founded in 1988, also publishes the bimonthly WGN journal.
The attack’s cause, impact on data and motive have not been established. There are no known reports of an individual or group claiming responsibility or demanding a ransom, and the article does not confirm that data was stolen. The incident follows other attacks affecting scientific and space-related organisations, but no link is suggested. US agencies warned in 2023 that space organisations could be targeted by nation-state-backed hackers; that warning does not establish who was behind this attack.