British man charged with hacking US military networks
Lauri Love infiltrated thousands of systems including those of the Pentagon and Nasa
A British man has been arrested in England and charged by the United States and Britain with hacking into US government computer systems, including those run by the military, to steal confidential data and disrupt operations, authorities said.
Lauri Love and three co-conspirators allegedly infiltrated thousands of systems including those of the Pentagon’s Missile Defence Agency, the US Army Corps of Engineers, the US space agency Nasa and the US Environmental Protection Agency, according to a US grand jury indictment made public on Monday.
Love, 28, and the unnamed co-conspirators, including two in Australia and one in Sweden, then left “back doors” in the networks to later retrieve data, and intended that their activity “disrupt the operations and infrastructure of the United States government,” according to the indictment.
“Such conduct endangers the security of our country and is an affront to those who serve,” US Attorney Paul Fishman in New Jersey, who announced the charges, said in a statement.
The cyber threat presents a significant risk to national security and military operations
Love was charged in Britain with violating the Computer Misuse Act, and charged in the United States with accessing a US government computer without permission and conspiracy, authorities said.
Fishman said the hacking took place from October last year until this month. He said it compromised personal data of US military personnel, and information on defence budgets, contract bidding, and the demolition and disposal of military facilities, and caused millions of dollars of losses.
The arrest comes as authorities worldwide coordinate efforts to combat cybercrime. On October 10, US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel issued a memorandum emphasising a need to safeguard even unclassified technical data against cyber intrusions to help protect US military superiority.
“The cyber threat presents a significant risk to national security and military operations,” Pentagon spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Damien Pickart said. “We take this threat seriously and work diligently to prevent future intrusions.”
Chat rooms
Love lives in the Suffolk village of Stradishall, about 113 km northeast of London. He was arrested at his home on October 25 by the cybercrime unit of Britain’s National Crime Agency and other officials, authorities said. He has been released on bail until February next year, an NCA spokeswoman said.
US prosecutors said the scheme by Love and his co-conspirators involved the installation of malware in the hacked systems, creating “shells” and “back doors” that allowed them to return later to steal data.
The indictment described how Love, who was also known as “nsh” and “route” and “peace,” at times allegedly used internet chat rooms to discuss the hacking and efforts to conceal it.
In an October last year conversation described in the indictment, Love discussed the hacking of an Army Corps database that might have yielded 400,000 email addresses, and asked a co-conspirator to “grab one email for curiosity.”
Nine months later, in July this year, he appeared to boast about accessing a Nasa database, telling another co-conspirator “ahaha, we owning lots of nasa sites,” the indictment said.
Later that month, he told the same co-conspirator after another hacking: “This ... stuff is really sensitive. ... It’s basically every piece of information you’d need to do full identity theft on any employee or contractor for the (agency),” according to the indictment.
Prosecutors said hacked systems were located in places including Vicksburg, Mississippi, and the US Army’s Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, and also included a server containing information about military personnel at Fort Monmouth in New Jersey.
Love faces up to five years in prison and a fine on each US criminal count. Prosecutors said he faces additional charges in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, stemming from other unspecified “intrusions.”
The cases are US v. Love, US District Court, District of New Jersey; and US v. Love, US District Court, Eastern District of Virginia.
