An unidentified computer hacker has seized top secret US computer codes used for guiding missiles, satellites and spacecraft, according to press reports here.
Computer experts raided the offices of the Stockholm internet company Carbonide on February 6 and found a copy of the so-called “source codes” for the software program OS/COMET stored on the company’s internet server, the daily Expressen reported.
A person with access to the source codes can copy the OS/COMET program to see how it is designed. The codes are the key to the program, which is used by the US Navy and space administration NASA to guide numerous satellites, missiles and spacecraft.
Johan Starell, legal counsel in Sweden for the US company that developed the software, Exigent Software Technology, told Expressen the hacker managed to infiltrate the computer system of the US Naval Research Laboratory in Washington on Christmas Eve from Kaiserslauten University in Germany.
The hacker then placed the codes on the Swedish company’s server.
Starell, who stressed that Carbonide’s employees were not suspected in the case, said the hacker’s trace ended at Carbonide.
“If you are smart enough and know enough about computers to penetrate a security code and pinch a source code, then you’re also smart enough to hide your tracks,” he said.
“This is not some 13-year-old hacker that broke into the Pentagon’s home page. This person knew exactly what he was after — the source codes,” he added.
Carbonide president Erik Wickbom said his company had some 90,000 registered users for its server, called Freebox.com.
According to Wickbom, the hacker broke his way into one of the user’s accounts to put the source codes on the server, which is available to all users.
According to Expressen, a criminal investigation is being carried out in the US by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, and in Germany by the police.
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