An InfoWorld news article describes a couple of "sophisticated" hacker attacks on computer networks at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Tennessee and Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. The article says "it appears that intruders accessed a database of visitors to the Tennessee lab between 1990 and 2004, which included their social security numbers and dates of birth." There is further speculation that the personal data could be a bit of a smoke screen for a more serious intrusion by "a rival government". Of course we've heard a lot this fall about apparent intrusions by Chinese sponsored hackers, doesn't appear as though anyone is throwing another volley in that direction just yet but it will be interesting to see how this develops. Seems to me if the labs were compromised by "several waves of phishing e-mails with malicious attachments" then there is a serious lack of education at these sites... my kids know not to open attachments or provide sensitive info via e-mail!
