British man extradited for US military hacks

A British man who allegedly hacked into military computer systems and shut them down in the wake of the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks has been indicted by the US Department of Justice.

Gary McKinnon, a 36-year-old former systems administrator from London, was charged by a grand jury in New Jersey with intentionally damaging a federal computer system, according to a statement released by the US Attorney's Office in the Eastern District of Virginia.

McKinnon is believed to have attacked the Earle Naval Weapons Station, a US Navy command centre responsible for supplying munitions to the Atlantic fleet, three times between April 2001 and September 2001.

During the final attack on 23 September 2001, the DOJ alleges McKinnon deleted key files necessary to power some computers on the network.

"This was a grave intrusion into a vital military system computer system at a time when we, as a nation, had to summon all of our defences against further attack," Assistant US Attorney Scott S. Christie said in the statement. Representatives from the US Navy would not comment on the indictment.

The US Attorney's office also indicted McKinnon on seven counts of unauthorised access and damage to computer systems for his hack of nearly 100 computers, mainly military systems. The second indictment charged McKinnon with breaking into systems belonging to the US Army, US Navy, the US Air Force, the US Department of Defense and NASA, as well as six corporate computers. Altogether, McKinnon allegedly caused approximately $900,000 in damage.

Both indictments were handed down on Tuesday morning. The US Attorney's office in Virginia will be taking lead on the case, a representative from that office said.

After McKinnon was charged with the network break-in, the DOJ worked to try McKinnon in the United States, said Judy Prue, a spokeswoman for the Britain's National High-Tech Crime Unit.

"It was decided that he would be extradited to the US," Prue said. "Technically, we to had de-arrest this guy."

Robert Lemos writes for News.com. News.com's Margaret Kane contributed to this report. ZDNet UK's Matt Loney contributed from London