Security News > 2020 > May > Danger zone! Brit research supercomputer ARCHER hit with SSH-nixing cyber attack
One of Britain's most powerful academic supercomputers has fallen victim to a "Security exploitation" of its login nodes, forcing the rewriting of all user passwords and SSH keys.
Sysadmins warned ARCHER users that their SSH keys may have been compromised as a result of the apparent attack, advising them to "Change passwords and SSH keys on any other systems which you share your ARCHER credentials with".
Knowledgeable sources speculated to The Register that ARCHER is an obvious resource for research work by computational biologists as well as those modelling the potential further spread of the novel coronavirus - and is therefore a target for hostile states looking to steal advances from British research into the virus, or to simply disrupt it.
ARCHER is one of the most powerful supercomputers in the UK, although it is outclassed by the UK's most powerful publicly known super, an eight-petaFLOPS 241,920-core Cray-Intel machine operated by the Meteorological Office as well as the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts's two Cray XC-40s, the Atomic Weapons Establishment's in-house supercomputer and others.
The latest updates on the ARCHER status page said: "Unfortunately, due to the severity of the situation, the ARCHER Service will not be returned before Friday 15th May. We will review the situation with UKRI and NCSC on Friday and will then provide a further update to you."