Cyber attack on U.S. nuclear lab

10/12/2007 Written by minor

Few weeks ago we informed about rise of Chi­nese cyber­war­riors. Now, another attack against U.S. government’s nuclear weapons lab­o­ra­to­ries may have orig­i­nated in China, NY Times informed. Attack was reported last week in con­fi­den­tial mem­o­ran­dum dis­trib­uted to pub­lic and pri­vate secu­rity offi­cials issued bu U.S. Depart­ment of
Home­land Secu­rity.

Mem­o­ran­dum included list of web and Inter­net addresses linked to loca­tions in China. Oak Ridge National Lab­o­ra­tory in Ten­nessee dis­closed, that clas­si­fied infor­ma­tions were not com­pro­mised. Full extent of the intru­sion is still under inves­ti­ga­tion.

Attack were described as set of sophis­ti­cated attempts to com­pro­mise sys­tems in pri­vate and gov­ern­men­tal sector.

From leaked infor­ma­tions it is pos­si­ble to under­stand the way how the attack was done: attack­ers sent phish­ing e-​mails to staff, about 11 opened the attach­ments, that enable access to sys­tem.

This could be maybe described as attempt of espi­onage. Any­way this inci­dent just under­lines that Chi­nese are one of the most pow­er­ful play­ers and since their com­peti­tor — U.S. is one of the most devel­oped coun­tries pos­sess­ing newest tech­nolo­gies, another attempts will follow.