Federal investigators today revealed for the first time the real name of - and the scope of the investigation against - an Israeli teenager implicated in widespread and systemic attacks against US military servers.
In a statement released today, the Department of Justice said that Ehud Tenebaum had been arrested by Israeli National Police for "illegally accessing computers belonging to the Israeli and United States governments, as well as hundreds of other commercial and educational institutions in the United States and elsewhere."
The news also served notice to malicious computer crackers that the US is now a self-declared global cybercrime policeman.
"This arrest should send a message to would-be computer hackers all over the world that the United States will treat computer intrusions as serious crimes," said Janet Reno, US attorney general, in the statement.
"We will work around the world and in the depths of cyberspace to investigate and prosecute those who attack computer networks," Reno added.
Federal law enforcement officials said in the statement that the Israeli government was very cooperative and acted promptly when presented with evidence of crimes against their own computer systems.
The statement confirmed earlier Wired News reports that the investigation had gone on since February and involved multiple federal bodies, including at least 30 FBI agents. The investigation involved the Department of Justice, the FBI, the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, NASA, and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, and, finally, the Israeli Ministry of Justice.
Investigators from these federal departments traveled to Israel to present Israeli authorities with "evidence of the magnitude and the source of the intrusions into United States computers," the statement said.
The statement also said that, while the US treated the intrusions as serious incidents, no classified materials were accessed in the attacks. "There is no indication that the attacks were part of a state-organized military or state-sponsored campaign against the United States," the statement said.
The investigation first came to light with the search of the homes of two Northern California teenagers who participated in the attacks with Tenebaum, who later claimed to be the youths' teacher. The pair, who go by the aliases Makaveli and TooShort, were not arrested.
"The only thing worth saying is that the investigation continues, and we are looking at the relationship between Tenebaum and the hacking activity engaged in by the two California youths," said George Grotz of the FBI's San Francisco bureau.
