An unemployed computer systems administrator from north London is
facing extradition to the US. He was accused of exploiting known
vulnerabilities in Microsoft's Windows operating system to hack
more than 100 US government, military and corporate networks.
Gary McKinnon, 36, from north London, faces eight charges of
computer fraud resulting from a year-long hacking spree. The
indictment alleges that McKinnon, known by his hacker name "Solo",
broke into and damaged 92 computers belonging to the Pentagon, US
Army, Navy, Air Force and NASA, as well as six systems owned and
operated by private companies.
Once inside a network, McKinnon was alleged to have installed
remote administration and hacker tools, copied password files and
other sensitive but unclassified files and deleted user accounts
and other critical system files.
In at least one instance, McKinnon's hacking activity allegedly
caused a major military network in Washington to shut down for
three days in February. The losses stemming from his hacking are
estimated to be $900,000 (£567,000), according to the indictment.
"The significance of this case is that [with] his access to these
records, he was able to impair the integrity of the data on these
systems," said Paul McNulty, US attorney for Virginia, who brought
the charges.
McKinnon allegedly "scanned tens of thousands of systems" before
taking advantage of known vulnerabilities in Windows systems
installed on the targeted computers.
The indictment charges McKinnon with hacking into a computer used
by the US Naval Weapons Station that was used by the Navy to
monitor the identity, location, physical condition, staffing,
battle readiness and resupply of Navy ships.
Between April and June 2001, McKinnon allegedly stole 950 passwords
stored on seven servers connected to the NWS network and used that
access to damage and force the shutdown of the NWS system on 23
September, two weeks after the 11 September terrorist attacks.