Hackers target top secret US airbase

Hackers operating outside the US tried unsuccessfully to enter the computer network at a top secret US Air Force base, officials said.

There were 125,000 attempts made early on Friday at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, said Lieutenant General Richard Reynolds, commander of the Aeronautical Systems Centre.

‘‘I don’t know whether they wanted to get in and just get information, or whether they wanted to get in and cripple our network,’’ General Reynolds said.

Public affairs director Lieutenant Colonel Ed Worley called it ‘‘a concerted and directed attack, and one of the most orchestrated we’ve seen in about the last six months, and by ‘we’ I mean the Air Force.’’

The base is home to the Air Force Materiel Command headquarters, the National Air Intelligence Centre, research laboratories, and the programme management offices for the B-2 Stealth bomber, F-22 Stealth fighter and other major weapon systems.

It also houses one of the government’s biggest supercomputer centres, the Major Shared Resource Centre.