Second Defense Contractor L-3 ‘Actively Targeted’ With RSA SecurID Hacks
An executive at defense giant L-3 Communications warned employees this spring that hackers were targeting the company using inside information on the SecurID keyfob system freshly stolen from an acknowledged breach at RSA Security.
“L-3 Communications has been actively targeted with penetration attacks leveraging the compromised information,” read an April 6 e-mail from an executive at L-3’s Stratus Group to the group’s 5,000 workers, one of whom shared the contents with Wired.com on condition of anonymity.
It’s not clear from the e-mail whether the hackers were successful in their attack, or how L-3 determined SecurID was involved. L-3 spokeswomen Jennifer Barton declined comment at the time, except to say: “Protecting our network is a top priority and we have a robust set of protocols in place to ensure sensitive information is safeguarded. We have gotten to the bottom of the issue.” Barton declined further comment Tuesday. Based in New York, L-3 Communications ranks eighth on Washington Technology’s 2011 list of the largest federal government contractors. Among other things the company provides command and control, communications, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (C3ISR) technology to the Pentagon and intelligence agencies.
