London man arrested for 2001 NASA hacking
Gary McKinnon was indicted for the crime in the U.S. in 2002
June 8, 2005 12:00 PM ETIDG News Service -
Police in London arrested an unemployed computer systems administrator yesterday, more than two years after U.S. authorities said they would request his extradition to answer charges of hacking U.S. government computer systems.
Gary McKinnon, 39, was arrested at his home in northeast London at 6.30 p.m. local time and taken to a central London police station. He will appear in court later today at an extradition hearing, according to a spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Police Service, London's police force.
Although McKinnon was indicted in the U.S. in November 2002 (see story), London police received the extradition warrant only recently, the spokeswoman said.
The extradition warrant alleges that McKinnon gained illegal access and made unauthorized modifications to 53 computers belonging to NASA, the U.S. Army, the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Air Force between Feb. 1, 2001, and March 19, 2002, she said.
McKinnon was indicted by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia on seven counts of fraud and related activity in connection with computers. The indictment alleges that he obtained administrator privileges on a number of government computers and then used this power to delete user accounts and install software enabling him to remotely control the computers.
Reprinted with permission from
Story copyright 2009 International Data Group. All rights reserved.
Additional Resources



Learn the important issues you must consider before starting your next mobility initiative. Get your mobility white paper from IDC now, compliments of Sybase.
White Papers & Webcasts
How Controlling Access to Privileged Accounts Can Keep Insider Threat from Hurting Your Bottom Line
This white paper explores insider attacks and insider risk, and shows how to control them by controlling and monitoring access. The paper describes...
Strategic ECM Webinar
Learn what new strategic business benefits can be realized through ECM!...
Eliminate Spam, Gain Productivity
In this exclusive whitepaper, learn all about the dangers of spam and the cost to your business....
Managing And Protecting Your Ever Increasing Mobile Assets
Learn best practices for desktop and application virtualization, computer security, and computer life-cycle management....
2009 Gartner Magic Quadrant Report
Truly understand your options for WAN Optimization Controllers...
5 Architecture Issues that Impact BES performance
This Live webinar will identify critical log file errors, performance counters, and configurations to pay close attention to when optimizing BES server performance....
Tech Horizons: ASG's metaCMDB, The Technology That Rocks
Improved business productivity often requires more efficient IT and more efficient IT cannot be achieved without a better understanding of the way business...
Usability Is Everything
Learn what sets Workday's HR and Payroll solutions apart from the competition....
The Vector Approach to Data Center Power Planning
This white paper describes an approach that considers the major milestones and thresholds in data center power requirements-and how planners should adjust their...
The Value of Real SaaS at Workday
Cost savings, speed to value, and innovation brought to the enterprise by Workday's software-as-a-service solutions for HR and Payroll....
Subscribe to Computerworld


