WASHINGTON – Officials at Quantico Marine Base warn of a hacking attempt to the Navy’s computer network, which involves its intranet and how Navy NMCI users access the Internet and its emails.
Officials say network users have gotten phone calls from a person claiming to be from a web support team. The caller then told users that errors have been detected on their Navy computer work station, and the system could crash if it’s not fixed.
The would-be-hacker then advised users to link to a website so the problem can be fixed remotely, all in effort to try to gain access to the network.
First Lt. Jeanscott Dodd, public affairs officer for MCB Quantico, said in an email that the network has 700,000 users and 350,000 machines across Quantico and the Marine Corps in general.
“The reports were from Navy Marine Corps Intranet users, which is the Department of the Navy’s enterprise network and represents about 70 percent of the DON’s information technology environment,” she says.
“Don’t accept any advice or go anywhere based on a phone call,” Larry Magid, CBS and CENT technology consultant says.
His advice? Don’t respond.
WTOP’s Kathy Stewart contributed to this report. Follow @WTOP on Twitter.
