China Might Be Hacking Our Satellites

Somebody's been poking around electronically in two US satellites, and, yes, we're looking at you, China. It seems hackers interfered with the satellites—a Landsat-7 and a Terra AM-1, both used for climate and terrain observation—four separate times in 2007 and 2008, reports Bloomberg, which got an early look at a congressional report on US-China ties due out next month. While the report doesn't come right out and explicitly blame China, it says the attacks bear all the hallmarks of being orchestrated by Beijing, most likely via a ground station in Norway.

The report doesn't go into specifics on what, if anything, the hackers accomplished, but it warns that "such interference poses numerous potential threats, particularly if achieved against satellites with more sensitive functions." Hackers could, for example, knock a satellite out of the sky or manipulate its transmissions. Talking Points Memo asked NASA about it, and the agency confirmed "two suspicious events" with the Terra satellite. It wouldn't comment on the Landsat or get into the China accusations. (More China stories.)