Phishing Attack Hits Oak Ridge National Laboratory

The government lab expects to restore Internet access and external email service next week after losing nearly 1 gigabyte of unclassified data.

(click image for larger view)
Slideshow: Inside DHS Classified Cyber-Coordination Headquarters
The Department of Energys
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
is investigating a sophisticated phishing attack that forced it to shut down email and Internet access last week.
As of Thursday, external email and Internet service was still not back online at the lab, though employees were once again allowed use of their smartphones, Barbara Penland, a lab spokeswoman, said in an interview. She said the lab expects to restore Internet service and access to external email sometime next week.
The lab--which houses some of the worlds most powerful supercomputers and stores classified government data--was hit with a
phishing attack
on April 7 that was designed specifically to remove information from the network.
We ended up with an excess of 570 of those emails coming in to different people and we had some folks who clicked on the email, she said. One or two of them managed to get through into the system.
The labs IT team tracked and observed the virus for about a week before deciding that shutting down access to the Internet and external email last Friday was the best way to stop it, Penland said.
This one cleaned up behind itself and it stayed hidden to a large degree and actually wasnt very active until just before we shut the door, she said, adding that it was a virus security researchers are familiar with.
Less than a gigabyte of data was removed from the labs business and email networks as a result of the attack, which Penland stressed did not touch any of the Labs classified networks. Those are not connected to the public Internet, for obvious reasons, she said.
A tiger team of external security researchers and members of the labs internal IT team continue to investigate the virus and clean any devices or PCs that were affected by it, Penland added.
The ORNL is run by the University of Texas Battelle campus for the Department of Energy and is home to three supercomputers operated by federal agencies. In addition to one the Department of Energy oversees, the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
and the National Science Foundation also run supercomputers there.

Last News
▸ Hack Your Hotel Room ◂ Discovered: 23/12/2024 Category: security	▸ Website hacks happened during World Cup final. ◂ Discovered: 23/12/2024 Category: security	▸ Criminal Possession of Government-Grade Stealth Malware ◂ Discovered: 23/12/2024 Category: security

**Cyber Security Categories**
Google Dorks Database	Exploits Vulnerability	Exploit Shellcodes

CVE List

Tools/Apps

News/Aarticles

Phishing Database

Deepfake Detection

Trends/Statistics & Live Infos

Tags:
Phishing Attack Hits Oak Ridge National Laboratory