Two U. S. Laboratories and a Defense Contractor Victims of Cyber Attack
A U.S. defense contractor and two government research laboratories were victims of a “highly sophisticated” cyber attack last week. Battelle Corp, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and Thomas Jefferson National Laboratory were all hit hard by hackers. All three companies cut off access to the internet Friday after they became aware of the breach. Both of the research laboratories still have their websites down.
According to a spokesman for PNNL, Greg Koller, “The good news is no classified information has been compromised or is in danger from this attack.” These attacks are similar to the one that shut down access to computer networks at Lockheed Martin and Oak Ridge National Laboratories.
The ex-head of the Pentagon’s National Security Agency, Michael Hayden, said that the increase in cyber attacks is alarming. Those who design computer security systems are being pushing into “uncharted territory.” He spoke at a conference on cyber deterrence recently and said that “This is really hard for us to think about…If we don’t act boldly, something really bad is going to happen. Then we’ll overreact.”
Another speaker at the conference, James Mulvenon, who is a specialist on Chinese cyber issues said that the country must assume that its governmental and research network systems have already been accessed by potential enemies of the United States.
An audience of U.S. intelligence personnel was briefed recently by a group of private experts about how an entire metropolitan area could be brought down without anyone being able to detect it beforehand or determine what happened afterward. According to an architect at Recursion Ventures, which is a security technologies company, “There are no indicators of force buildup when malicious code is carefully inserted into a system.” There are conferences, forums, and round table discussions going on across the country in an effort to figure out how to stop the attacks.
