Romanian 'Hacked Into US Govt. Computers

Victor Faur, a 26 year old Romanian citizen has incurred huge looses to the government to the tune of $1.5 million. As per the judgment issued by the jury, the losses accrued over a period of two years that ended this November.

It was reported that Faur was first prosecuted in Romania for other hacking charges and after that he will be tried at Los Angeles. It wasn't known whether or not Faur had managed to get a lawyer for his trial in the United States.

The federal indictment alleged that Faur had been instrumental in spearheading a group of hackers popularly referred to as the 'WhiteHat Team' that seeks to hack and passwords and infiltrate systems of the U.S government. Brian Hoffstadt, Assistant U.S Attorney says that interestingly these hackers were keen to defy the popular reputation that U.S government information is simply impregnable.

Faur designed a program that helped him in chalking out all the combinations (in millions) of passwords that can be possible until he finally landed up with the appropriate password that allowed him access and take control of computers used by the US government.

The hacked computer systems were directed to gather, store and examine scientific data, including those that were related with information pertaining to a spacecraft in an orbit in deep space. These are highly confidential and extremely important databases for both the government and the scientific community used to evaluate new technological discoveries and innovations.

Once the hacking episode was brought to limelight, the affected computers were rebuilt, and engineers as well as scientists had a face several challenges in establishing communication manually with the spacecraft. NASA had suffered a whopping loss of $1.3 million, while the U.S Navy and the Energy Department together lost nearly $100,000.

The verdict is spelled out and the jury has charged Faur for contriving against the government. If he is finally convicted on all counts, he might have to face imprisonment up to 54 years, says the Attorney Office of USA.

Related article: Romanian Hacker Haunting ebay

» SPAMfighter News - 12/7/2006