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Chinese hack U.S. Weather systems, satellite network

washingtonpost.com

1–10 of 71 posts

Re: Chinese hack U.S. Weather systems, satellite network

#3
The article does not discuss much the motivation they might have had for this hack, aside from the fact they're probably looking for gaps in general US systems. But I'm very curious about the economics of hacking another nation's weather service; China could give itself significant (and creepy) economic advantages my MITMing the data from the satellites. I wonder if they're considering things like this?

Edit: Also, if they just wanted weather data, they should've signed up for http://pressurenet.io ;)

Re: Chinese hack U.S. Weather systems, satellite network

#6
The United States maintains two civil and one military program to provide meteorological imagery and data from spacecraft in polar and geostationary orbits around the Earth. The civil programs are managed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the military program is managed by the Department of Defense. The National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) is a unit of NOAA and is responsible for operating the civilian weather satellites (GOES and POES), distributing the satellite data and imagery, archiving the data, and planning for future systems. NESDIS also controls the Department of Defense constellation of polar orbiting weather satellites called Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP), which is similar to the civilian POES program.

...

Due to the classified nature of the DMSP imagery and other data products, the DMSP downlink data is encrypted, and thus the direct readout system is not available to nonmilitary users.

That all comes from this cool-as-hell PDF† about how to build a GOES/POES ground receiving station. Anyways the most obvious target here is probably the DMSP products, rather than, say, a Bruckheimer-esque plot to disrupt NOAA satellite imagery during the height of the Atlantic hurricane season.

http://noaasis.noaa.gov/NOAASIS/pubs/Users_Guide-Building_Re...

Re: Chinese hack U.S. Weather systems, satellite network

#7
post #3

The article does not discuss much the motivation they might have had for this hack, aside from the fact they're probably looking for gaps in general US systems. But I'm very curious about the economics of hacking another nation's weather service; China could give itself significant (and creepy) economic advantages my MITMing the data from the satellites. I wonder if they're considering things like this? Edit: Also, i…

From a military standpoint, weather is super important. The D-Day landings at Normandy were delayed several times because of bad weather.

http://www.history.com/news/the-weather-forecast-that-saved-...

Re: Chinese hack U.S. Weather systems, satellite network

#8
post #5

Yet another org too embarrassed to tell people they've been hacked, or more likely that they failed to do security at all.

Public companies risk being sued by their shareholders if they publicly disclose a breach, and as a consequence, the stock falls.

If only there were laws in place that protected companies from things like this...

Re: Chinese hack U.S. Weather systems, satellite network

#10
post #6

The United States maintains two civil and one military program to provide meteorological imagery and data from spacecraft in polar and geostationary orbits around the Earth. The civil programs are managed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the military program is managed by the Department of Defense. The National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) is a unit…

Of course if you were an evil genius bent on destroying the US by sending a massive hurricane into the eastern seaboard, your first step would be to disable the ability to see it coming ... :-)
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