Computer Hacker Had Unclassified Data, Navy Says

WASHINGTON — The Navy said Friday that a computer hacker had obtained data from one of its computers but that the information was not classified.

Paul O’Donnell, spokesman for the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, was commenting on remarks by a lawyer in Sweden who said the hacker had accessed top-secret U.S. computer system codes for guiding spaceships, rockets and satellites.

Johan Starell, legal counsel for Exigent Software Technology Inc. in Sweden, said computer experts had raided the offices of an information technology company in Stockholm last month and found a copy of the source codes for the software program OS/COMET developed by Exigent.

But O’Donnell said in Washington that “the information compromised was unclassified.”

“The Naval Criminal Investigative Service has been investigating an unlawful entry into a naval research laboratory unclassified computer system,” he said.