Former US Navy Systems Administrator Given 2 Years in Prison for Hacking Navy Database

Aaron Boyd

December 5, 2014

System Admin Sentenced For Hacking Navy Database

A former nuclear systems administrator with the Navy was sentenced to two years in prison for his role in the 2012 hacking of the Navy’s Smart Web Move database and publicly releasing personal records of some 222,000 service members.

Team Digi7al member Nicholas Paul Knight, 27, of Chantilly, Va., was sentenced Friday after pleading ‘guilty’ in May.

The Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) began looking into Team Digi7al in 2012 after a breach was detected in the Smart Web Move database, which stores personnel records, including Social Security numbers, dates of birth and other personally identifiable information. Links to the information were posted publicly through the Team Digi7al Twitter account.

In 2013, while serving on the USS Harry S. Truman, Knight was caught up in a NCIS sting operation while attempting to hack into a restricted network.

Knight’s co-defendant Daniel Krueger, 20, of Dix, Ill., received a two-year prison sentence on Oct. 22.

Knight, Krueger and Team Digi7al have also been linked to cyberattacks on the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and more than 50 other public and private networks.

“Computer hacking presents a significant risk to national security,” said Danny Williams, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Oklahoma. “As a service member in the United States Navy, the defendant knowingly breached his oath of enlistment and became an insider threat. We will continue to work with our law enforcement partners to find cyber-criminals and prosecute them to the full extent of the law.”