The portal for access to supercomputers in Europe, which was used to investigate the COVID 19 epidemic, was hacked this week, Bloomberg cited reports from laboratories in Switzerland, Britain, and Germany. This could mean that hackers tried to break into the system to steal or interfere with the research process.
“The attackers want to accumulate intellectual property or slow down research efforts to combat the Kovid 19 epidemic,” said an official who requested anonymity and was responsible for the operation. in supercomputers that are affected, he said.
The Swiss National Supercomputer Center (SNSC) has confirmed the incident and temporarily closed access to the system pending investigation. “A cyber attack has been carried out against several academic computers. Our system engineers are actively working to bring the system back up as soon as possible, ”the center said. According to Bloomberg, the supercomputers at SNSC were used to study the small membrane protein of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
Earlier this week, the British supercomputer service ARCHER also suffered an attack on the registration system. ARCHER uses a supercomputer system to simulate the spread of COVID-19. Five days after the incident was announced, the ARCHER system was still offline. In the same incident, the supercomputer center in the German city of Baden-Wurmern experienced security.
Over the years, state-sponsored hackers have been accused of conducting research-based attacks to steal scientific, medical, and intellectual property information belonging to public companies. companies in the fields of technology, defense, agriculture, as well as other fields. On Tuesday, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Department of Homeland Security issued a warning statement to US scientific researchers about attacks by hackers based in China. The case is being actively investigated by the FBI.