The storm prediction center, run by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, remained down as of 6:30 PM PT, though a spokesman told ZDTV News that it was due back online more than an hour before that. The NASA site also remained down as of press time. (To see the NOAA hack, click here. To see the NASA hack, click here.)
The NOAA hack drew particular attention, because the site offers information on potential life-threatening storms, including tornadoes.
NOAA spokesman Tim Tomastik said that while only the Storm Prediction Center's home page was defaced, the organization pulled the entire site and its e-mail servers offline "as a precautionary measure."
Tomastik said that "many emergency managers were inconvenienced by this, because they've come to use our Web site . . . as a very convenient way to get the information right from the horse's mouth." At the same time, he noted that the site is not a primary source of such information, so the hack did not seriously affect users.
B.K. DeLong, a computer security consultant in Boston and an administrator of attrition.org, a computer security site, said that the NOAA hack was irresponsible, given the nature of the site, but did not appear malicious.
"It's another situation of kids hacking a site because they can," DeLong said.
But in the wake of a Government Accounting Office report that was highly critical of security measures at government sites, and a high-profile hack of the U.S. Army home page Sunday, he raised the question of who's minding the store.
"We don't vindicate hacking, but what about the hackers we don't hear about, people doing industrial espionage and foreign hackers who are breaking into the machines? You see army.mil being hacked and NASA being hacked even after the GAO report. Army.mil is the main site of the army and it kind of makes you wonder who's administering these sites," DeLong said.
The rash of government site hacks continued Tuesday, as a key storm predictor and a NASA site were defaced and pulled offline.
The storm prediction center, run by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, remained down as of 6:30 PM PT, though a spokesman told ZDTV News that it was due back online more than an hour before that. The NASA site also remained down as of press time. (To see the NOAA hack, click here. To see the NASA hack, click here.)
The NOAA hack drew particular attention, because the site offers information on potential life-threatening storms, including tornadoes.
NOAA spokesman Tim Tomastik said that while only the Storm Prediction Center's home page was defaced, the organization pulled the entire site and its e-mail servers offline "as a precautionary measure."
Tomastik said that "many emergency managers were inconvenienced by this, because they've come to use our Web site . . . as a very convenient way to get the information right from the horse's mouth." At the same time, he noted that the site is not a primary source of such information, so the hack did not seriously affect users.
B.K. DeLong, a computer security consultant in Boston and an administrator of attrition.org, a computer security site, said that the NOAA hack was irresponsible, given the nature of the site, but did not appear malicious.
"It's another situation of kids hacking a site because they can," DeLong said.
But in the wake of a Government Accounting Office report that was highly critical of security measures at government sites, and a high-profile hack of the U.S. Army home page Sunday, he raised the question of who's minding the store.
"We don't vindicate hacking, but what about the hackers we don't hear about, people doing industrial espionage and foreign hackers who are breaking into the machines? You see army.mil being hacked and NASA being hacked even after the GAO report. Army.mil is the main site of the army and it kind of makes you wonder who's administering these sites," DeLong said.
