-
Text size
In an interesting hacking case, a 22-year-old Nigerian man has been given 18 months by the Lagos state high court after attempting to woo a NASA employee in the US in a bid to infect her computer.
Following a complex legal case involving officials from Nigeria and the US, it seems that Akeem Adejumo contacted the NASA employee via an online dating agency, posing as a Texan with a false picture.
After exchanging emails over several weeks, Adejumo sent a missive that supposedly had his picture attached. The attachment was actually malware, and the woman's desktop became infected.
According to US newswires, the woman's email, passwords, social security number and driving licence information was harvested by the malware - until it was detected a few weeks later.
NASA officials started worrying when it appeared that the malware had captured around 25,000 screenshots of the woman's PC and was relaying the data across t'Internet.
It was at this stage that the case took on national security overtones, although NASA officials are quoted as saying that only handful of the screenshots left the NASA network.
This suggests to me that the NASA network has come fairly sophisticated security software.
It's worth noting, however, that Adejumo is quoted as saying he was unaware of the value of the information he was harvesting. Yeah, r-r-r-ight...
