A British man wanted in the
US
for allegedly
hacking into 92 separate networks operated by the
US
Army, Navy, Air Force and the Pentagon is due to appear at Bow
Street Magistrates Court, England, today.
Arrested in November 2002 by officers from the National Hi-Tech
Crime Unit, Gary McKinnon, 39, of north London faces extradition
over claims that he gained illegal access and made alterations to
US
military and NASA computers over a 12-month period
from 2001 to 2002.
Using software available on the internet, McKinnon – an
unemployed systems administrator – allegedly carried out what has
been called the biggest military computer hack of all time. The
US
Government estimated the cost of identifying and
fixing its problems at around $1 million.
McKinnon was indicted in 2002 by a
US
grand jury on
eight counts of computer-related crimes in 14 different states and
was arrested yesterday by the Metropolitan Police's Extradition
Unit.
The
US
indictment said he hacked into an Army
computer at Fort Myer, Virginia, obtained administrator privileges
and transmitted codes, information and commands before deleting
about 1,300 user accounts.
It alleged he also deleted critical system files on the
computer, copied a file containing usernames and encrypted
passwords for the computer and installed tools to gain unauthorised
access to other machines.
