Holy cow
Quasimodem: Hacker rings the bells of St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna at two in the morning
Bells ringing at 2 a.m.: Most of the residents should not have been amused.
© Antonio Guillem / Getty Images
Good Lord again: Vienna’s St. Stephen’s Cathedral kept the residents awake at night with deafening chimes for a whopping 20 minutes – until the cathedral priest calmed things down. The reason for the nocturnal tinkling: Apparently a hacker allowed himself a joke.
Normally, the first bell of Vienna’s St. Stephen’s Cathedral rings around seven in the morning. With good reason: if the church chimed at night too, the local residents would have little chance of falling asleep. But that’s exactly what happened: On Wednesday night at 2:11 a.m., the cathedral bells gave a special performance for around 20 minutes, until the cathedral priest Toni Faber put an end to the noise.
The reason for the excitement was not an error in the timer of the bells, but apparently a hacker attack, the Archdiocese of Vienna said. An unknown attacker had gained access to remote maintenance, which the Innsbruck bell company responsible had apparently not adequately secured. Once in the system, the unauthorized person first started the so-called festival bells in the south tower, then the baroque bells in the northern Heidenturm. The famous “Pummerin”, a church bell from 1957 that is only rung on certain occasions, remained silent – the big bell is not connected to the Internet.
God in heaven, where is the ringing from?
In an interview with the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”, Dompfarrer Faber is still surprised by the night-time attack on his church. When the cathedral bells woke him up, he said he immediately rushed into the church to see what had happened. At first he assumed that someone had broken into the cathedral.
When it became clear that nobody was there, Faber rushed to the tablet that controls the church bells. Unfortunately for him, he didn’t know which button triggered which function and therefore needed around 20 minutes until the cathedral was finally quiet again. Apparently he made a mistake that could have caused great damage: he revealed in an interview with the “SZ” that he was so excited that he switched off all the bells at the same time – a process that could have overtaxed the engines, because actually you have to switch off the bells individually.
Motive unclear, fears great
Faber accuses the attacker of having acted very purposefully. He initially assumed the disturbance was related to the war in Ukraine because the church had hung up a banner reading “No War” the night before. Since the uninvited bell ringer left no message, the motive remains unclear.
The pastor describes the effects on the Viennese population as much more drastic. People expected the worst, for example an attack on the city or the death of the Pope. Faber revealed that he was surprised at what people would interpret into the ringing of a church even today.
By the way, there is no reason to expect any further tinkling at night: the remote maintenance was immediately better secured and can no longer be easily accessed from the Internet. To date, no one has claimed responsibility for the attack: “We’re waiting to see if the IT experts at the bell company find out anything,” said the cathedral priest at the Austria Press Agency yesterday.
Swell: Southgerman newspaper, Orf, Orf [2]