Idaho National Laboratory (INL), the nuclear research center that works for the US Department of Energy, confirmed that it suffered a "massive data breach" last Sunday night.
A group of "gay hackers", called SiegedSec, claimed to be responsible for the hack.
This led to employee addresses, Social Security numbers, bank account information, and other private data being published online, according to local media .
The breach occurred "in a federally authorized vendor's system" that "supports INL's cloud HR services," a lab spokesperson told Endgadget on Wednesday, adding that the lab took "immediate action to protect employee data. "
INL is located in Idaho Falls, a community of about 67,000 people in the eastern part of the state. The center employs more than 5,000 employees and focuses on research into nuclear reactors and sustainable energy projects for the federal government.
Initially, local media did not name the suspected hackers, but a group calling itself SiegedSec eventually took responsibility, posting some of the stolen information on social media.
"We are willing to make a deal with INL. If they look into creating 'catgirls IRL', we will remove this post," SiegedSec wrote in a message announcing the leak on Monday.
A "cat girl" is a type of character that appears in some Japanese anime and manga, usually a human girl with cat ears, a tail, or other characteristics. IRL stands for "in real life."
SiegedSec described itself as a group of “furry” gay hackers, referring to a fetish that includes anthropomorphic animals.
The group claimed responsibility for leaking hundreds of NATO documents in early October, as well as hacking several US state governments in June, under the pretext of passing laws against sex reassignment operations.
On that occasion, SiegedSec leaked nearly 180 gigabytes of data from Texas alone, and said it hacked Nebraska, Pennsylvania, South Dakota and South Carolina as well.
Apple may abandon a technology favored by many iPhone users
Some websites reported that Apple would abandon a technology that was used in many iPhones.
Reports circulated by Chinese websites indicated that Apple may not use fingerprint scanner technologies in any type of future iPhone devices, and that “the company has closed most of the tools it used to produce and enable Touch ID technologies in the past, and the last phone that came with these technologies is the iPhone SE.” Which was launched in 2022.
According to expectations, Apple will develop a new generation of iPhone SE devices, and the fourth generation of these devices will rely on facial recognition technologies (Face ID) to unlock the screen and ensure data protection in the phone.
Many reports issued last year indicated that Touch ID technologies would return to iPhones, and some websites reported that Apple was also working on developing Face ID technologies to have its sensors integrated into phone screens.