China Link Suspected in Lab Hacking

[Dogbiscuit]

-{ Quote: "The US-CERT advisory, which was not made public, stated: “The level of sophistication and the scope of these cyber security incidents indicate that they are coordinated and targeted at private sector systems.”" }-
Article (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/09/us/nationalspecial3/09hack.html)

[lucas1985]

According to DailyTech, the attacks have been much less sofisticated than what the media has shown.
-{ Quote: "The Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Tennessee and Los Alamos National Lab in New Mexico have made a habit of collecting the social security numbers, names, and birth dates of scientists who visit the plants. The information is put into a database, which reads like a who's who of America's top scientists.

Unfortunately, nobody thought such a practice might be a bit insecure. Starting October 29, workers at the labs began receiving phishing emails, which followed a traditional attack pattern of containing malicious Trojan-containing attachments.

There is no evidence that the attacks were specifically geared at the lab. If the attacks were just a general Internet attack, those responsible might have been excited at the big fish they caught. The two labs both have reported that the phishing emails gained access to their system, which indicates at least two employees -- one at each plant -- were foolish enough to click the attachment and commence the damage. The result was that the database with the scientists' information was compromised.

The phishers gained access to the records of all visitors at the plant between 1999 and 2004.
" }-
Full article (http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=9950)

Follow-up blog (http://www.dailytech.com/Hack+The+Planet/article9951.htm)
-{ Quote: "The media sphere is shifting quickly to the horror stories of international hacking -- are we on the eve of the next pervasive war?" }-