The Bureau of Meteorology has said it will not comment on claims that it could potentially cost “hundreds of millions of dollars” to remediate systems affected by an alleged security breach.
ABC earlier today reported that the Bureau’s supercomputer had been compromised by a “major cyber attack” originating in China.
ABC political editor Chris Uhlmann wrote that multiple sources had confirmed the attack and that other agencies had been affected by the security breach.
“The Bureau does not comment on security matters,” the organisation said in a statement.
“Like all government agencies, we work closely with the Australian Government security agencies,” the BoM statement said.
“The Bureau's systems are fully operational and the Bureau continues to provide reliable, on-going access to high quality weather, climate, water and oceans information to its stakeholders.”
The Bureau is currently engaged in a major upgrade of its weather forecasting capabilities.
The organisation announced earlier this year that Cray was the successful tenderer for the Bureau’s supercomputer upgrade.
The new supercomputer will allow the Bureau to deliver more accurate, more certain and more frequent weather forecasts.
Read more: Opinion: Time for an updated approach to cyber security
The new Cray XC40 supercomputer will have an initial 1660 teraflop capability, which will eventually be boosted to 5 petaflops.
The first phase of the project is expected to be completed in mid-2016.