China linked to cyber attack on U.S. nuclear arms lab

A confidential memorandum distributed to public and private security officials by the Department of Homeland Security has linked China for a cyber attack on one of the federal governments nuclear weapons laboratories.

Washington, Dec.10 : A confidential memorandum distributed to public and private security officials by the Department of Homeland Security has linked China for a cyber attack on one of the federal government's nuclear weapons laboratories.

Security researchers said the memorandum, which was obtained by The New York Times from an executive at a private company, included a list of Web and Internet addresses that were linked to locations in China.

However, they noted that such links did not prove that the Chinese Government or Chinese citizens were involved in the attacks.

According to The International Herald Tribune, in the past, intruders have compromised computers in China and then used them to disguise their true location.

Officials at the lab, Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, said the attacks did not compromise classified information, though they acknowledged that they were still working to understand the full extent of the intrusion.

The Department of Homeland Security distributed the confidential warning to computer security officials on Wednesday after what it described as a set of "sophisticated attempts" to compromise computers used by the private sector and the government.

Government computer security officials said the warning, which was issued by the United States Computer Emergency Response Team, known as US-CERT, was related to an attack in October that was also disclosed last week by officials at the Oak Ridge laboratory.

ANI