A hacking attack on government laboratories in the United States has been traced back to China. Laboratories including the Oak Ridge site were subjected to sophisticated and coordinated attack last week (lab statement).

Although classified information was not obtained other, non-classified databases were compromised in October and attacks were not just limited to Oak Ridge. Facilities including the Los Alamos nuclear lab were targeted (ABC). Now this breach has been linked to IP addresses in China, according to confidential memos from the Department of Homeland Security (NY Times).

“At this point, we have determined that the thieves made approximately 1,100 attempts to steal data with a very sophisticated strategy that involved sending staff a total of seven ‘phishing’ e-mails, all of which at first glance appeared legitimate. At present we believe that about 11 staff opened the attachments, which enabled the hackers to infiltrate the system and remove data,” says Thom Mason, director of the Oak Ridge laboratory (NY Times).

ABC diplomatically notes, “Investigators have not been able to determine whether the attacks came from government or private entities in China.”

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