Cyberattack hits Energy lab
The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has shut down its website and Internet access as a result of an attack that shows some similarities to one that hit Oak Ridge National Laboratory in April.
A cyberattack against an Energy Department lab has led officials to shut down the lab's public website, Internet access and e-mail service.
The Energy Department’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory was the victim. Located in Richland, Wash., the lab is a research and development facility operated by the Battelle Memorial Institute under DOE contract. It does work in the areas of information analysis, cybersecurity and nuclear nonproliferation.
Related story:
Oak Ridge lab shuts down e-mail, Internet after cyberattack
The Seattle Times reported that the attack was detected July 1.
Lab spokesman Greg Koller said July 6 that e-mail service remained down as a result of the attack. The public website at www.pnl.gov also remained unavailable, displaying a message that it was undergoing system maintenance.
Details of the PNNL attack were not immediately available. The incident appears to be the latest in a series of attacks targeting government and contractor systems. In April, Internet access to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory was shut down for more than a week in the wake of a breach in which malicious code was introduced through a successful spear phishing attack. At the time the code was described as “very sophisticated” and apparently designed to steal information from the lab’s network.
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