Chinese hackers have been blamed for an attack on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) weather forecasting systems, which caused a multi-day data outage when the agency reacted to the breach in October.

The NOAA, which is the parent of the National Weather Service, was hit by a three-day long satellite data outage from October 21 to October 23. At the time it was blamed on “unscheduled maintenance”, but the truth has since come out via The Washington Post – it was actually due to a serious security breach.

The attack took out a number of servers that the NOAA says handle “critical environmental intelligence” satellite feeds to Canada and Europe. With the servers offline, the agency was left unable to feed fresh data into its weather forecasts. We’re lucky the outage didn’t last any longer, or apparently it would’ve had a big impact on the accuracy of said forecasts, adds the Washington Post. And it wouldn’t have impacted the US alone, but also numerous other countries that rely on the NOAA’s data.

The affair is somewhat embarrassing for the NOAA, as it apparently tried to cover it up. The agency is supposed to notify the Commerce Department immediately of any such incidents, but it didn’t do so until November 4 – over a month after the attack took place.

Congressman Frank Wolf (R-VA) has since confirmed to the Washington Post that it’s believed the attack originated from China, though he didn’t say what evidence the agency had to prove that.

“[The] NOAA told me it was a hack and it was China,” said Wolf, adding that the agency was “deliberately misleading the American public in its replies” in an effort to cover up the attack.

“They had an obligation to tell the truth,” he continued. “They covered it up.”

The incident isn’t the first time the NOAA has been left with egg on its face. It’s been embarrased by several incidents over the past year, including one of its hydrologists being arrested by the FBI for downloading classified information about dams, and a “mystery” Android app that managed to take the National Weather Service’s website offline last August.

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