International Meteor Organization says cyberattack dealt ‘critical blow’ to website

A cyberattack has shut down the website of the premier international organization responsible for tracking meteors. 

The International Meteor Organization (IMO) has continued tracking asteroids and meteor through its Facebook page, but its website now carries a static page notifying visitors of the cyberattack. 

“We recently suffered a cyberattack that dealt a critical blow to aging infrastructure, taking much of our site offline,” the organization said. “We expect several weeks of partial downtime as we transition to new infrastructure and services. We will bring features back as they become available.”

The IMO said it prioritized restoring its fireball reporting system, which is now available to users for submissions. 

The nongovernmental organization did not respond to requests for comment. It was founded in 1988 as a way to unite amateur and professional meteor observers and scientists. 

The Belgium-based organization is scheduled to hold its annual international conference next week in France. 

The IMO has been instrumental in creating global standards for meteor observations and for creating a database of meteor and fireball reports that include photos, videos and telescopic data. 

No hacking group has taken credit for the attack as of Wednesday afternoon. 

Hackers have repeatedly targeted organizations doing research into space and U.S. agencies previously warned of cyberattacks on the space industry due to its increasing importance to the global economy.

In 2023, hackers went after the National Science Foundation’s National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory in Hawai'i and the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) observatory in Chile.

The American Meteorological Society was also hit with ransomware in 2023.