So I found a case that is a bit older, 1999-2000, to be exact. Johnathan James became the youngest computer hacker to be incarcerated after hacking into the U.S. Department of Defense and installing a backdoor which allowed him to intercept nearly 3,300 emails which included usernames and passwords for 19 different accounts in which ten of them were for military computers. James was known on the internet as “c0mrade”. After hacking into the U.S. Department of Defense, James then hacked into NASA and stole software worth $1.7 billion. This software is what was used to control the space station, including the living conditions and the theft of the software actually caused NASA to shut down for twenty one days in order to remove any possible viruses and re-secure the computers and data within the establishment.
James did end up pleading guilty to juvenile delinquency in a sealed federal case. He spent six months in a state detention facitility. He admitted to accessing thirteen computers at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., as well as downloading the software for the space station.
As part of his sentence he had to write letters of apology to the secretary of defense and the NASA administrator. Which, apparently it isn’t uncommon for these departments to deal with threats like this. One member of NASA said the odd part of the case was that the boy got caught, not how far he got. Which, I don’t know about you, but that does not leave me with much confidence in our government cybersecurity precautions.
The overall financial loss for NASA was $41,000 for the 21 day shutdown and the $1.7 billion software was recovered. It isn’t said how much was spent after the shutdown to ensure the attack did not leave behind any harmful viruses or such after the fact.
This story leaves me with one question; how in the world did a fifteen year old boy learn how to hack, let alone into a government facility and steal software? I genuinely have no clue how someone would learn to do this at such a young age. And since he was only fifteen, he had an extremely light sentence compared to if he was tried as an adult.
I’m not really sure that this has made me think of changing much with my use of computers simply because I really only use technology for social media. I do not think I would ever find myself in the situation he has. I do think I would consider being a bit more careful with which sites I access and how I go about the use of them.
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