A nuclear laboratory in Idaho was reportedly hacked this week, with sensitive employee information, including bank account information and Social Security numbers, leaked by a self-described group of “gay furry hackers” that previously targeted the City of Fort Worth in Texas.
Idaho National Laboratory (INL), a government-owned nuclear research facility in Idaho Falls, confirmed to the press that it had determined on Monday “that it was the target of a cybersecurity data breach in a federally approved vendor system outside the lab that supports INL cloud Human Resources services.”
“INL has taken immediate action to protect employee data,” INL spokesperson Lori McNamara told The Register.
McNamara told East Idaho News that the INL “has been in touch with federal law enforcement agencies, including the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security’s Cyber Security and Infrastructure Security Agency to investigate the extent of data impacted in this incident.”
The INL did not identify the hackers, but SeigedSec, the group of “gay furry hackers” that The Dallas Express reported hit Fort Worth earlier this year, claimed responsibility for the attack and leaked employee data on its Telegram channel.
“[W]e’ve successfully gained access to Idaho National Laboratory,” the group posted on social media on November 19. [M]mmmm yummy data~ we’ve accessed thousands of user and employee data!”
SeigedSec said the data it leaked included employees’ full names, dates of birth, email addresses, phone numbers, Social Security numbers, addresses, and other employment information.
Subsequent posts added that the group would take down leaked INL staff records if the INL performs experiments to research creating “catgirls” — cat-human hybrids — in real life.
“[W]oah so much crunchy data :3 … we’re willing to make a deal with INL. [I]f they research creating irl (“in-real-life”) catgirls, we will take down this post :D,” the group wrote.
“Many people ask ‘why?’ for INL breach,” SiegedSec wrote in another post. “We are cats, intricacies such as ‘why’ do not concern us.”
The group followed up with a post on November 22 in which it also leaked sensitive information from employees of the City of Hendersonville in North Carolina.
“[W]hile the FBI and CISA were still investigating our INL hack, we slipped under their watchful eagle eyes and stole more government employee data,” SeigedSec posted.
The group previously attacked Forth Worth in June, as reported by The Dallas Express. It has a history of hacking government entities and private corporations for political reasons.
In the case of the City of Fort Worth, the hack was carried out in retaliation for Texas legislation prohibiting the administration of transgender hormones or performance of sex-altering procedures on minors.
Last year, SiegedSec hackers released more than 7GB of government data from Kentucky and Arkansas after the states passed strict abortion laws in the wake of the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade.
Additionally, SiegedSec has claimed responsibility for leaking information from Israeli corporations amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas.
