Nicholas Paul Knight has been hacking since the age of 16

May 9, 2014 09:18 GMT  ·  By

The case of Nicholas Paul Knight, 27, of Chantilly, Virginia, and Daniel Trenton Krueger, 20, of Salem, Illinois, has made a lot headlines over the past few days. The two are suspected of hacking into the systems of numerous organizations while being part of a group called Team Digi7al

The group targeted the systems of numerous organizations between April 2012 and June 2012, including the ones of several universities, the US Navy, the US National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, the US Department of Homeland Security, the World Health Organization, the Toronto Police Service in Canada, the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the Montgomery Police Department, and the Library of Congress.

At the time of the attacks, Knight worked as a system administrator in the nuclear reactor department of the US Navy’s nuclear aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman.

Team Digi7al’s attacks were largely ignored, but Softpedia covered most of them. Furthermore, we have even interviewed Knight as part of our “Hackers around the world series.” At the time of the interview, he was using the online moniker Iner7ia, and he was a member of TeamHav0k.

TeamHav0k, which revealed the existence of numerous vulnerabilities in high-profile websites, was dismantled in April. Shortly after, some of its members formed Team Digi7al.

At first, Team Digi7al also focused only on finding vulnerabilities, but they soon started leaking data from various websites.

In our interview with Knight, he admitted being a member of the Navy. He revealed that he was hacking since the age of 16.

“From the beginning, I just wanted to be the one who would help companies find and patch holes in their security. After a while, I got bored with it and decided to join the darkside. I found it to be way more enjoyable then the lightside,” he told us at the time.

Military.com reports that parts of our interview are actually quoted in the charging documents.

Court documents seen by The Register describe Team Digi7al as a “criminal association organized to hack protected computers, steal sensitive and private information, make unauthorized public disclosures of that stolen... information and commit various other crimes related to its hacking activities.”

However, in his first interview after being charged, Knight has told ABC News that Team Digi7al were “just a group of people that were dumb and did dumb things.”

Although he admits having hacked some websites, he claims that a different member of the crew is responsible for attacking military and government sites.

Knight was never arrested, but he did cooperate with authorities after his home was raided in 2013. He worked with investigators to help them track down the individual responsible for most of the hacking.

Knight and Krueger face up to five years in prison and a $250,000 (€180,000) fine.

In the meantime, Toronto police have come forward to deny that their internal systems have been breached. According to court documents, the hackers leaked the details of over 500 confidential police informants.

While the law enforcement agency admitted that the hackers had gained access to some outdated information, they highlighted the fact that no confidential data was compromised at the time.