The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) computer network was breached by hackers believed to be from China. The attack was not immediately disclosed by NOAA, the federal agency that oversees the National Weather Service (NWS).
Security-related incidents must be reported no later than two days after they occur, according to organization policy.
Hackers from China.
Confirmation of the incident came last Wednesday when, in a statement, Scot Smullen, a spokesman for NOAA, said that four websites had been compromised. The origin of the links appears to be from China, but it cannot be said with certainty, since the links change
An attack on NOAA's systems is extremely serious, as the agency operates a network of satellites that provide weather information not only to the general public, but to airlines as well as military meteorologists.
The organization immediately performed maintenance on the network, but did not provide further information about the incident.
According to a report released last summer, the level of security on the organization's computers was particularly low. In many cases, the Windows autorun option was found to be active on the computers, which would allow any program to run even from a USB.
Since the last attack, NOAA has instituted an IT Securitythat is mandatory for all employees at the organization to attend every year.
