Investigations by the US Secret Service have led to the arrest
of 14 individuals, who are accused of attacking web sites belonging
to NASA and the US Army and Navy. The US investigation, which was
conducted by the US Secret Service and the US Army and Navy, was
initiated last October, following the theft of sensitive files
containing confidential documents from government and military web
sites.
According to media reports, the 14 suspects, who include four
minors and two network security managers, were based in cities
throughout Italy and are members of two hacking groups.
In addition to the charges of computer fraud, for which the 14
hackers face penalties of up to eight years imprisonment, the
suspects are accused of stealing credit card details from web
servers and the Italian police are reported to have seized
counterfeit credit cards.
Further reports allege that the hackers also distributed pirate
DVDs and kept the content of illegally duplicated films on
university servers which they had accessed.
