Cyberattack sends International Meteor Organization crashing back to Earth

Attack dealt a 'critical blow' to aging infrastructure, with several weeks of disruption expected

The International Meteor Organization (IMO) is watching for fireballs again, but much of its website remains offline after a cyberattack that it says will take weeks to recover from.

The Belgium-based nonprofit, which coordinates meteor observations and brings together amateur and professional astronomers worldwide, is currently serving visitors a stripped-down holding page explaining the outage.

"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."

IMO has not disclosed when the attack occurred, how the attackers gained access, or whether they accessed or encrypted any data.