Feel free to insert your “Chinese hackers caused polar vortex” jokes here…
All kidding aside, this article exposes yet another chilling flaw in our national infrastructure. The fact that so many critical systems had so few basic security features installed and lacked even fundamental patching and vulnerability management should disturb and outrage all Americans. These satellites were not private entities or simply the resources of the Department of Commerce. These were shared devices with the US Air Force and a critical component of several key systems. Initial vulnerabilities were discovered on July but still remain unaddressed. That window of time is simply too large.
Congress loves hearings. Why are they not meeting about this? Where is the outrage? Where is the concern? If homerun records were at stake, I bet someone would have spoken up by now.