U.S. charges U.K. hacker caused $900,000 in damage
Source: REUTERS
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. 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.
Prosecutors said 36-year-old Gary McKinnon, an unemployed computer programmer living in north London, stole passwords, deleted files, monitored traffic and shut down computer networks on military bases from Pearl Harbor to Connecticut.
McKinnon's actions shut down Internet access for thousands of Washington-area military employees for three days, according to federal charges filed in Virginia and New Jersey, and disrupted operations at a Navy station in New Jersey shortly after the Sept. 11 hijacking attacks of last year.
McKinnon also hacked into NASA, the University of Tennessee, a public library in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and several private businesses, according to the charges.
