The inhabitants of Vienna’s city centre were roused from their beds overnight into Wednesday... by a computer hack on St Stephen’s Cathedral.

The cyberattacker exploited an Internet connection between the Gothic cathedral and a bell company on Tuesday night to make the bells in the two towers of the Viennese landmark ring, cathedral priest Toni Faber said.

The rogue peel lasted for about 20 minutes until Faber managed to intervene with his own computer to restore night-time peace.

“We apologise to everyone who was woken up by this,” said a spokesperson for the Archdiocese of Vienna. Nothing is yet known about the background of the hack.

 - dpa