'Sophisticated cyber attack' hits Energy Deptartment's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory -- GCN

'Sophisticated cyberattack' hits another Energy Dept. lab

By William Jackson
Jul 06, 2011

The Energy Department’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has shut down its public website, Internet access and e-mail service due to what a spokesman called a "sophisticated cyberattack."

PNNL, located in Richland, Wash., 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.

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.

About the Author

William Jackson is a Maryland-based freelance writer.

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