A defense contractor developing a public Web site for the Navy shut down a key computer network this week after hackers gained access to employee passwords and other user information.
A Navy spokesman emphasized yesterday that no military secrets were stored on the computer server operated in Mission Valley by Booz Allen Hamilton, a consulting firm working with the Navy in San Diego.
But the weekend incident was embarrassing to SPAWAR, the San Diego-based Naval command that serves as the information technology provider for the entire U.S. Navy.
Booz Allen has been working closely with SPAWAR, known officially as the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command, to develop a Web site featuring public information about SPAWAR. That Web site was subjected to a similar cyber attack on April 22, about a week before the electronic raid on Booz Allen.
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