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Nonprofit that tracks meteors taken down by "critical blow" from a cyberattack

2026-09-16 | original

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Why This Matters

A cyberattack has taken down much of the International Meteor Organization's website and infrastructure, disrupting a key global resource used by amateur and professional astronomers to report and track meteor and fireball sightings. The incident highlights how even niche scientific nonprofits with aging IT systems are vulnerable to cyberattacks, and raises questions about why such an organization—with mostly public data—would be targeted at all.

Key Takeaways

The IMO, a key hub for coordinating global meteor and fireball observations, suffered a cyberattack that crippled much of its site and services.
The organization expects weeks of partial downtime while migrating to new infrastructure, and is prioritizing fireball reporting and using Facebook as a stopgap.
The motive behind the attack remains unclear, since the IMO's data is largely public, raising broader questions about cybersecurity risks facing under-resourced nonprofits.

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The International Meteor Organization, the nonprofit that coordinates and publishes amateur and professional observations of meteor phenomena, said its infrastructure has suffered a “critical blow” from a cyberattack.

“We recently suffered a cyberattack that dealt a critical blow to aging infrastructure, taking much of our site offline,” a static page on its website on Wednesday said. “We expect several weeks of partial downtime as we transition to new infrastructure and services.”

“I am very sad to see the site down”

In the meantime, the IMO said it’s prioritizing the reporting of fireball observations, which can be reported here. The organization is also providing some information on its Facebook page.

The IMO has helped forge unified standards for reporting meteor observations. Its databases of reported meteor and fireball observations—made up of text, photos, and videos—are also considered essential by many in the field. The IMO also publishes the bimonthly WGN journal, which in English is short for Working Group News. The body was formally founded in 1988.

It’s unclear why an organization that tracks large, fiery space objects hurtling toward Earth would be the target of a damaging cyberattack. It’s equally unclear why someone would want to steal its data (assuming that was the motive), which is mostly public.

Explore topics: international meteor organization cyberattack fireball observations wgn journal meteor tracking