From: Journal-News
By Barrie Barber and Steve Bennish
An employee of the National Weather Service’s Wilmington office has been indicted on charges of illegally hacking into a restricted federal computer database controlled by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers detailing information about dams nationwide.
The indictment echoes a security breach in 2013 in which U.S. intelligence officials revealed a computer intrusion into the same database by what were described as Chinese government cyber spies.
The Corps’ National Inventory of Dams has deep security implications because it includes detailed information on a critical part of the infrastructure that supplies hydroelectric power to the electrical grid. Additional concerns are that dams could be targeted in war time to cause large losses of life.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation said that Xiafen “Sherry” Chen, 59, of Wilmington, was indicted in U.S. District Court on one count of theft of U.S. government property, punishable by up to 10 years in prison; one count of illegally accessing a U.S. government computer database, punishable by up to five years in prison; and two counts of making false statements to federal agents, punishable by up to five years in prison. She also faces fines totaling $1 million.
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