NASA hacker arrested in Romania

A 26 year old Romanian has been arrested after being accused of having illegally gained entry into NASA’s servers.

British hacker Gary McKinnon, who continues to fight against his extradition to the United States, isn’t the only "NASA hacker". This title is often given to the man, even though he also made a fleeting and impromptu visit to the Pentagon’s servers as well.

26 year old Robert Butyka is another NASA hacker. He was arrested in Romania on Tuesday and has been accused of unauthorised access to the American Space Agencies systems. This intrusion was allegedly made in December 2010, causing the deterioration of computer data.

The damages and interest estimated to have been caused by “Iceman’s” attack is half a million dollars. The USA has apparently not filed a formal extradition request at this time.

InformationWeek has also sent out a reminder that NASA has previously been the target of illegal intrusions by Romanians in the past, like Victor Faur. In 2005, this hacker attacked numerous NASA servers in addition to the US Department of Energy and US Navy.

Given a suspended jail sentence, Victor Faur is currently appealing the decision to avoid paying the US government 240 000 dollars in damages. NASA claims that the attacks caused in the order of 1.36 million dollars in damages.