Hackers Target Federal Lab

A fake e-mail scheme may have opened up access to a database full of social security numbers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

A coordinated attack on Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Tennessee in the past month may have compromised a database full of over a thousand names, social security numbers and birth dates. The lab announced news of the hacking on Thursday, calling it a “sophisticated cyber attack.”

According to the Knoxville News Sentinel, the lab’s staff were blanketed with “phishing” e-mails, which bait people into giving up sensitive information like passwords by appearing to come from a legitimate institution. Both the Federal Trade Commission and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission were faked in 12,000 e-mails sent to ORNL employees.

The lab believes it took only 11 employees responding to the e-mails to compromise security to a database, which stored information on visitors to the lab between 1990 and 2004. The information in the database, including social security numbers, was maintained to provide security clearance for the visitors.

Lab director Thom Mason said they would attempt to notify as many people whose names were in the database as possible, although so far no misuse has been reported.