Johns Hopkins' Applied Physics Lab Web site is cyber attacked
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I found out this afternoon that the Website for the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel was down as a result of a cyber attack -- in what was described to me as the most serious attack to date on its site.
Mary Worth, an APL spokeswoman, was kind and helpful enough to share some early details on what's going on with the facility's external Website.
APL, if you didn't know, has scientists and engineers working closely with the military and NASA on classified and non-classified projects. How often are these cyber attacks happening at Maryland's research and military institutions? (Of which we have a good amount, if you haven't noticed.)
Here's a snippet of my story, followed by a link to it:
The Web site for Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory, which works closely with the military and NASA on research projects, was hit with a cyber attack that officials discovered Sunday and which led them to take down the site until they analyze their computer systems, a spokesman confirmed Tuesday.
Officials at APL, which is based in Laurel, discovered "penetration from an unwanted source" on its external Web site over the weekend, prompting them to take the site offline, according to Helen Worth, a spokesman.
Worth said the Web site had been victimized in the past by smaller attacks, but this recent one was the most significant incident to date. The attackers accessed nonclassified information on the external Web site but did not gain access to classified information or the facility's internal network, Worth said.
As part of their internal review, officials are trying to figure out exactly what information was accessed, she said. "Unfortunately in this day and age, what we're experiencing isn't very different from what many others have experienced," Worth said.
Comments
Just read your story. Based on the comments that the site will be offline for a couple days while they scan the computers., indicates they never thought this might occur or didn't plan for any computer outages. Any half way competent sysadmin could have at least a splash site back up in an hour on new hardware.
From a PR perspective that looks a lot better than taking the site offline. Especially when you have a newspaper article being written about it.
Posted by: Paul | June 16, 2009 9:12 PM
Paul makes a great point - it sure seems like they didn't think that this could happen to them.
Unfortunately, the data shows that less than 1% of organizations have a security threat prevention plan - even though 90%+ have web security threats.
We've just launched a new web security threat prevention service. It's simple and effective and starts at about a dollar a day.
These attacks won't stop, and businesses need to start taking web security as seriously as network security.
Posted by: Tim Kassouf | June 17, 2009 9:18 AM
How exactly is accessing "nonclassified information on the external Web site but did not gain access to classified information or the facility's internal network" a cyber attack?
By that definition, going to any old website and reading the FAQ page is a cyber attack.
Hopkins called it a "cyber attack" and "penetration from an unwanted source." Unfortunately, for their security, they feel they have to be very vague in the information they're releasing on it. The attackers also somehow got into the internal network. Hopkins won't say how. -gs
Posted by: Toby | June 25, 2009 12:47 PM