 A Romanian man was indicted on charges that he hacked into more than 150 government computers used by the Navy, Department of Energy and NASA.  Victor Faur, 26, of Arad, Romania, cost the government $1.5 million in losses by computers over a two-year period that ended last month, according to the indictment issued Thursday by a federal grand jury here. The computers that had to be taken out of service and repaired were collecting and analyzing scientific data that cannot be replaced, Assistant U.S. Atty. Brian Hoffstadt said. The 10-count indictment accuses Faur of conspiracy, unauthorized access to government computers and intentional damage to computers. He could face up to 54 years in prison if convicted on all counts. Faur will be brought to Los Angeles to face the charges after his prosecution by authorities in Romania on separate hacking charges, said Thom Mrozek, spokesman for the U.S. Attorneys office. It was not known whether Faur had retained a lawyer in the United States. The U.S. government alleged Faur was the leader of a crew called the WhiteHat Team whose goal was to break into U.S. government computers because they are considered some of the most secure machines in the world. Faur used a computer program to cycle through millions of combinations of possible names and passwords until he was able to access and take control of the computers, the indictment claimed. Faur then programmed the machines to operate as chat rooms so he could communicate with other WhiteHat members, Hoffstadt said. During the break-ins, Faur also searched for passwords that WhiteHat members could use to gain unauthorized access to other computers, Hoffstadt said. The compromised computers were used to collect, store and analyze scientific data - including data from spacecraft in orbit and deep space - and to evaluate new technologies. The machines were located at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena; Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.; Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, N.M.; and U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington D.C. After the hacking, scientists and engineers had to manually communicate with spacecraft and the computer systems had to be rebuilt.
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