The self-proclaimed “gay furry hackers” of SiegedSec are back, this time boasting that they’ve broken into the computer systems of America’s largest nuclear power lab and stolen the records of thousands of employees. Some of this data has apparently already been leaked.
SiegedSec, which also claimed to have breached NATO’s IT security twice this year, said it had now hit the Idaho National Laboratory (INL), which is run by the US Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy. Employees’ social security numbers, physical addresses and bank account details are among the information said to have been taken.
The lab has at least acknowledged that its human resources systems have suffered a cyber attack.
“On Monday, November 20, the Idaho National Laboratory determined that it was the target of a cybersecurity data breach in a federally-approved vendor system outside the lab that supports INL’s cloud human resources services,” spokeswoman Lori McNamara told The Register today.
“INL took immediate action to protect employee information.”
The lab’s nerve centre has called in the police and promised to release more information as the situation develops.
East Idaho News reported that it had been able to confirm the authenticity of the leaked information with several INL employees, which SiegedSec had earlier posted on its Telegram channel.
The self-proclaimed furry hackers have since offered to remove the employee records if the lab conducts experiments that are, at best, highly irregular.
“We are ready to make a deal with INL. If they research the creation of IRL catgirls, we will remove this post,” the group said. Creating real-life cat-human female hybrids is a common meme in certain corners of the internet, but it’s not the lab’s speciality.
According to the hacktivists, the intruders gained access to “hundreds of thousands of user, employee, and citizen records”, including full names, birth dates, email addresses, social security numbers, employment information, and “much, much more”.
INL employs more than 6,100 people in and around Idaho Falls at its massive 890-square-mile site, which houses the densest concentration of nuclear reactors in the world. The 70-year-old facility has been instrumental in the development of nuclear power, was home to the first nuclear generator to produce a usable amount of electricity, and developed the first nuclear propulsion system for US Navy submarines.
The laboratory has built and operated 52 nuclear reactors in its lifetime and continues to research advanced nuclear energy concepts. In addition to nuclear energy research, INL also works on alternative energy solutions, such as improving electric vehicle batteries, protecting the power grid and designing small modular reactors.
It’s unclear what motivated SiegedSec to attack INL. In its previous network breach of NATO, the group attributed its actions to the military organisation’s “attacks on human rights”, adding that it’s also “fun to leak documents”.
