Chinese hacker recently hacked into US weather systems,forcing cyber security teams to steal off data vital to disaster planning,aviation,shipping and scores of other crucial uses,official said.The intrusion occurred in late September but officials gave no hint they had a problem until October 20.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which includes National Weather Service,did not say its system were compromised.Some reports also says that agency did not notify the proper authorities when it learned of the attack.
NOAA officials declined to discuss the suspected source of the attack, whether it affected classified data and the delay in notification.In a statement released Wednesday, NOAA spokesman Scott Smullen acknowledged the hacks and said “incident response began immediately.” He said all systems were working again and that forecasts were accurately delivered to the public. Smullen declined to answer questions beyond his statement, citing an investigation into the attack.
But NOAA confirmed to U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf, that China was behind the attack, the Republican Congressman from Virginia said in a separate interview.Wolf has a long-standing interest in cybersecurity and asked NOAA about the incident.“NOAA told me it was a hack and it was China,” said Wolf, who also scolded the agency for not disclosing the attack “and deliberately misleading the American public in its replies.”
Wolf said "A hack could steal technical insights or cull isolated information that may not look significant until they’re put with something else and then they become valuable. The Chinese are stealing us blind.”
Commerce Department Inspector General Todd Zinser said his office was not notified of the breach until Nov. 4, well after he believes the hack occurred. He said that is a violation of agency policy requiring any security incident to be reported to his office within two days of discovering the problem.
“We’re in the process of looking into the matter, including why NOAA did not comply with the requirements to notify law enforcement about the incident,” Zinser said.NOAA officials also would not say whether the attack removed material or inserted malicious software in its system, which is used by civilian and military forecasters in the United States and also feeds weather models at the main centers for Europe and Canada.The attack on NOAA joins a spate of cyber-espionage on federal systems revealed recently, including an attack suspected from Russia that breached unclassified White House Computer Networks.
NOAA’s National Ice Center Web site also was down for a week in late October. The center is a partnership with the Navy and Coast Guard to monitor conditions for navigation.The two-day outage skewed the accuracy of National Weather Service long-range forecasts slightly, according to NOAA.Security experts compares the security used by NOAA to secure their system with an example of house protected by just a screen door.
Weather satellites orbit hundreds to thousands of miles above Earth and offer continuous views of weather systems, such as hurricanes, thunderstorms and cold fronts, while also measuring temperature and moisture at different altitudes — all crucial bits that feed prediction models. To get that information to the public, NOAA makes satellite data and imagery publicly available through the Web, as well as file-transfer networks for downloads.NOAA satellites “provide critical data for forecasts and warnings that are vital to every citizen and to our economy as a whole,” NOAA Administrator Kathryn D. Sullivan said a year ago.
“The bad guys are increasingly having a hard time getting in the front of these agencies,”said Jacob Olcott, a cybersecurity consultant. “So they figure if I can’t get in the front door, I’d ride along in with someone who has trusted access and maybe ride that connection to bigger agencies.”
“All the operational data sent via NOAA, which is normally an excellent service, was lost,” said Stephen English, head of the satellite section at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts in Reading, England. The center is renowned for running a highly advanced global weather prediction model that during Hurricane Sandy, for example, aided evacuations and preparations in the United States when it signaled that the superstorm would hit land rather than hook out to sea.
This is the 8th incident in recent weeks which has China's involvement in the attacks.
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