Why would anyone want to hack the weather?

• by Ellie Hurst
• Advent IM Blog

A review of the news of the BoM attack  from Security Consultant, Chris Cope.

Or more precisely, why would anyone want to hack the Australian met office?  Well, its happened and officials are quick to announce that the damage will take millions of dollars to fix and that China was responsible for the hack.  Its not the first time that allegations have been made against Chinese hackers and, with the information available, it is pure speculation for non-official sources to speculate on how accurate the Australian allegation is.  But what is interesting is the close links between the Australian met office and the Ministry of Defence.  The nature of the links aren’t specified, but for an attacker looking to infiltrate the Australian Ministry of Defence, the obvious ways in are more than likely to be heavily protected.  But what about subsidiaries?  Could the Australian met office represent a weak link?  In this case, perhaps not as the intrusion was detected but there remains a lesson here for all companies.  Increasingly, outsourcing is becoming more common.  Services that organisations don’t want to deliver themselves are passed on to a service provider.  So, whilst we might be content that the security measures in place for our company are robust, can we say the same about those third parties that we connect to?  What assurances have been carried out, do contracts cover security consideration, are those connections monitored and is there a joined up incident reporting procedure?  All of these are valid questions and ones that are increasingly important in our interconnected world.  If you don’t know the answers to these questions, perhaps its time to find out, before a trusted partner becomes your Achilles Heel.

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net