China Accused of Breaching Strategic Australian Meteorology Computers

The incident occurred at the Bureau of Meteorology, which owns one of Australia’s largest supercomputers and provides critical information to many agencies.

Its systems reach across the nation, including one link into the Department of Defense in Canberra.

The Australian Broadcasting Corp. has been told this is a "massive" breach and one official said there was little doubt where it came from.

"It's China," he said.

The motivation behind the hack attack could be commercial, strategic or both.

The bureau is a key national resource and another nation state would place a high value on its intellectual property and scientific research.

Disrupting Australia's ability to accurately forecast weather would affect the operation of military and commercial aircraft.

Beyond that, the bureau provides a gateway to other agencies.

"They're looking for the weakest link and so if you go into an agency, which may have a level of security clearance, but perhaps not as high as central parts of the national security community, maybe there are weaknesses they can exploit which will enable them to then move into other, more highly-valued targets," Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) executive director Peter Jennings said.