Energy Secretary Bill Richardson has suspended all scientific work on sensitive computers at its three nuclear weapons laboratories, The New York Times' James Risen reports.
"The message is that I am dead serious about strengthening security at the labs," Richardson said. "Our computer security has been lax, and I want to strengthen it, and the only way to do that is to stand down. I want to demonstrate to Congress and the American people we are serious about upgrading computer security at the labs, and that there will never be another lapse."
The computers, at Los Alamos National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, are connected via networks but are not linked to the outside world.
Los Alamos Director John C. Browne demurred, saying "we have to look at threats to information security from a risk-benefit standpoint and put in place additional procedures that make sense. We can't raise the bar so high we can't get any work done. That affects national security too."
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