NASA OIG: Alabama Computer Hacker Pleads Guilty to Eighteen Count Felony

On December 19, 2002, William Douglas Word of Pelham, Alabama, pled guilty in United States District Court, Birmingham, Alabama, to seventeen counts of malicious injury or destruction to means of communication operated by the United States Government and one count of possessing fifteen or more counterfeit or unauthorized credit card numbers. Word damaged Department of Defense and NASA websites.

Special Agents of the NASA Office of Inspector General’s Computer Crimes Division, the Defense Criminal Investigations Service, the Naval Investigative Service, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation conducted the investigation. The prosecution was handled by James E. Phillips, Assistant United States Attorney, Northern District of Alabama, in Birmingham.

For more information on this release, please contact Paul Shawcross, Executive Officer, NASA Office of Inspector General, at (202) 358-2558.