By Andy Sullivan
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.
"This is an incredibly sophisticated cyber criminal," said Newark U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie. "He was a very busy guy."
Prosecutors said they would seek to extradite McKinnon, who is charged with seven counts of computer fraud. If found guilty, he could face up to $1.75 million in fines and 70 years in jail.
McKinnon's lawyers in London issued a statement late on Tuesday acknowledging that he was arrested in March for computer-related offenses.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office in Alexandria said she did not know if McKinnon was currently in custody.
McKinnon accessed 92 separate computer systems in 14 states between March 2001 and March 2002, according to the charges.
After gaining entry, McKinnon would use a software program called RemotelyAnywhere to monitor network traffic and delete files.
McKinnon downloaded hundreds of user passwords, the charges said, and in several cases destroyed critical files that made the computers unable to function. The damage at the naval station in New Jersey approached $300,000, according to the charges filed there.
A spokeswoman in Virginia said McKinnon did not access any classified information.
But national security had nonetheless been compromised, one security expert said.
"If you're able to impact critical systems that the military relies on, I would call this a serious attack," said George Kurtz, chief executive of Foundstone Inc., a computer-security company in Mission Viejo, California
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