The Energy Department, responding to a security scandal at the Los Alamos weapons lab, ordered a halt to classified work at as many as two dozen facilities that use removable computer disks like those missing at the New Mexico lab.

Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said Friday that the "stand-down" at DOE operations that use the disks, containing classified material involving nuclear weapons research, was needed to get better control over the devices.

The disks, known as "controlled removable electronic media" or CREM, have been at the heart of an uproar over lax security at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, where work has been stopped as scientists search for two of the disks reported missing on July 7.

By the Associated Press at Wired.

[ Read more ]