Navy Terse On Post Story About Chinese Hack, Defense Secrets

NEWPORT, RI — The Navy is saying little publicly about a Washington Post story published Friday. The story states that Chinese hackers stole sensitive information about a new weapon, which the government secretly planned to install on submarines by 2020. The hackers got the information when they broke into a contractor's computer, the Post reported. Although not identified, the contractor reportedly was working for the Naval Underseas Warfare Center in Newport.

Lisa Rama, the Newport Navy base's spokeswoman, is out of the office this week, but in an automatic e-mail message, she referred questions to the Navy.

Cmdr. Bill Speaks, Navy spokesman, said now is not the time to discuss the details.

"Per federal regulations, there are measures in place that require companies to notify the government when a 'cyber incident' has occurred that has actual or potential adverse effects on their networks that contain controlled unclassified information," he said. "It would be inappropriate to discuss further details at this time."

The Washington Post story reported the information was not classified, but in aggregate, "could be considered classified." The hack grabbed "614 gigabytes of material relating to a closely held project known as Sea Dragon, as well as signals and sensor data, submarine radio room information relating to cryptographic systems, and the Navy submarine development unit’s electronic warfare library," the Post reported.

U.S. Sen. Jack Reed, D-RI, told WPRI-TV on Monday he believes the hack is very serious. Click here for Channel 12's story.