US Indicts British National in Military Hacking Case

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, November 13, 2002

US Indicts British National in Military Hacking Case

US federal prosecutors charged a British man on Tuesday with hacking into nearly 100 government and private-sector computers, disrupting military operations and causing $900,000 in damage over the course of a year.

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US federal prosecutors Tuesday filed a seven-count indictment against a British hacker who allegedly broke into 98 computer systems belonging to the US military, NASA, and civilian companies.

US officials will seek to extradite Gary McKinnon, 36, from London to face trial on the charges, said Paul McNulty, the US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. McKinnon has been in British custody during the investigation but was free Tuesday, he said.

"Mr. McKinnon is charged with the biggest military computer hack of all time," McNulty said, "It's probably one of the biggesthacks ever detected."

McKinnon, an unemployed computer system administrator, is accused of hacking into 92 computers at the Pentagon, several military bases and the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, and six computers belonging to private companies.

The intrusions occurred during a yearlong period beginning in March 2001, McNulty said. The cost of tracking and correcting the problems was estimated at about 1 million dollars.

McKinnon is believed to have acted alone, with no known connection to any terrorist organization, McNulty said. The British hacker managed to obtain sensitive but not classified information from the computers.

Meanwhile, another indictment in New Jersey accuses McKinnon ofcrashing a network of 300 computers at a Naval Weapons Station to be shut down for a week. It took a month to fully repair the damage, US Attorney Christopher Christie said.

McKinnon faces a maximum penalty of five years in federal prison and a 250,000-dollar fine for the New Jersey charges.

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