Romanian accused of hacking into NASA computers appears in court

Jun 26, 2007, 13:27 GMT

Bucharest - A Romanian IT graduate accused of having hacked into US computer systems including those of the space agency NASA appeared in court on Tuesday.

State prosecutors with special responsibility for organized crime outlined the case against 22-year-old Victor Faur from the western Romanian town of Arad, where the case is to be heard in the first instance.

Faur faces a maximum 12 years in prison for having violated security laws. US authorities including NASA are meanwhile claiming damages of around 2 million dollars citing the cost of updating software following the hacker attack.

According to state prosecutors Faul, the son of a doctor, illegally accessed between November 2005 and September 2006 servers belonging to NASA, the US Navy, the US Energy Ministry as well as the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Goddard Space Flight Centre.

While in these systems he altered data, downloaded applications and installed IRC (Internet Relay Chat) communications channels in order to gain further access to information networks.

Romanian authorities investigated Faur after being alerted to his activities by the United States. The US state attorney has accused Faur of heading a hacker gang known as the 'White Hat Team.'

Faur has repeatedly stated that he was not a member of an organized group, and claims to have hacked the NASA system in order to prove its vulnerability.

'Everything was a game, I did not want to hurt anyone,' he said.