Government, contractors hit in targeted attack

Computers belonging to the U.S. government, contractors and companies in the transportation industry were hit by a targeted computer attack in July that yielded password information for hundreds of Internet and intranet Web sites, a computer security vendor said Tuesday.

The malicious code behind the attacks was first detected by computer intrusion prevention vendor Prevx Ltd. on July 5. In total, the criminals were able to cull 200M bytes information from about 500 computers, including password and login data, Prevx said.

All but one of the computers was located in the U.S., and many of the computers that were infected were associated with air transportation, according to Mel Morris, CEO of Prevx. “This was a well-coordinated attack by someone wanting to get information on the related sites.”

PCs at the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), American Airlines Inc. and DOT contractor Booz Allen Hamilton Inc. all were compromised, Morris said.

Full article and source: Network World