This week the US DoJ announced that Nicholas Knight, a 27 year old man from Virginia, who served as systems administrator in the nuclear reactor department of an aircraft carrier, and the 20 year old Illinois student, Daniel Krueger, were charged with the conspiracy count for participation to hack into the computer servers.
The two are accused of having taken part in hacking operations against more 30 organizations with the purpose to steal identities, sabotage and obstruct the justice. The two are members of a hacking group known as “Team Digi7al,”, the data stolen by the group was posted online and shared via the Twitter account of Team Digi7al.
“The Navy quickly identified the breach and tracked down the alleged culprits through their online activity, revealing an extensive computer hacking scheme committed across the country and even abroad,” said U.S. Attorney Danny Williams.
The hacking group known as “Team Digi7al,” targeted government entities such as the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the U.S. Navy, the list of victims includes following organizations:
- U.S. Navy
- U.S. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
- U.S. Department of Homeland Security
- AT&T U-verse
- Autotrader.com
- Harvard University
- Johns Hopkins University
- Kawasaki
- Library of Congress
- Los Alamos National Laboratory
- Louisville University
- MeTV Network
- Montgomery Police Department (Alabama)
- Peruvian Ambassador’s email (in Bolivia)
- San Jose State University
- Stanford University
- Toronto Police Service (Canada)
- Ultimate Car Page
- University of Alabama
- University of British Columbia (Canada)
- University of Nebraska-Lincoln
- World Health Organization
The Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) investigation identified Knight and Krueger as the alleged hackers. There are also allegations on both of them to allegedly hack into Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, Stanford University and the Toronto Police Service in Canada, the release said.
On June 2012 the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) investigation identified Knight and Krueger as the alleged hackers, the Bureau detected a breach of the Navy’s Smart Web Move (SWM) database used to manage transfers for service members of all branches of the military.
“The SWM database stored sensitive personal records, including Social Security numbers, names, and dates of birth, for approximately 220,000 service members. The servers that stored these records were located in Tulsa, giving rise to the venue in the Northern District of Oklahoma.”
The Navy was obliged to shut down the system, fix the flaw and indemnify those employees victims of identity theft and other fraudulent activities.
Both men risk a maximum prison sentence of five years and a file of $250,000.
(Security Affairs – hacking, NCIS)
