From what we know so far, the attack on the Cern website does not appear to be serious but its implications are.

The hack was on a publicly accessible site configured separately from the vital control networks which run the LHC.

The web pages breached related to the Compact Muon Solenoid Experiment, one of the four detectors around the LHC ring.

Hackers look for vulnerabilities in programmes and, if they are found, will write instructions into them so that they can execute commands and, in this case, insert their own page into the site.

The “Greek Security Team” responsible for this hack are likely to be “white hat” hackers who hack for non-malicious reasons.

“Black hat” hackers subvert computer security for vandalism, credit card fraud, identity theft and other crimes. At its most serious, gangs of organised black hat hackers, often from Russia or Eastern Europe, carry out cyberscams resulting in the loss of billions of pounds a year.

An FBI computer crime survey estimated annual losses to all types of computer crime, including viruses, financial fraud, and network intrusions, at $67 billion a year in the US alone.

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