Internet security and climate change had a surprising run-in last week, as thousands of emails from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit wound up on climate-skeptic web sites. The University says it is cooperating with police and launching its own investigation into how the emails wound up online.
While many universities have suffered data breaches by cybercriminals, the fact that this data was released to anti-climate change sites strongly suggests the breach was politically motivated, said Andrew Storms, director of security operations at nCircle Security. “There is no doubt in my mind that the break-in was a targeted attack,” Storms said.
“Cybercriminals seek assets worth value on the black market — private and personal information primarily. Large amounts of emails about climate research aren’t worth much when it comes to identity theft,” Storms said. “Further, if the attackers felt there was monetary value in this information, they would not have leaked it so readily.”
Republicans Pounce on Emails
Even if the investigations find there was a criminal trespass by hackers with a political agenda, the release of the documents have put climate scientists and politicians trying to pass climate-change legislation back on their heels.
An aide to Rep. Darrell Issa (R. Calif.), the ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said congressional investigators are studying the purloined emails, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.
The aide said the investigation is centering on emails sent by White House Science Adviser John Holdren. In a series of emails sent in 2003, Holdren, then at the Woods Hole Research Center in Woods Hole, Mass., defended research by Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University, a scientist who believes human activities account for global warming.
Mann reportedly sent an email in 2003 suggesting climate researchers stop contributing to the journal…