The Nasa extradition hacker Gary McKinnon did not want to do serious damage to the corporate networks, according to an industry expert.

Mr McKinnon faces extradition to the US after hacking into 97 computers belonging to Nasa and the US armed forces.

However, senior technology consultant at Sophos Graham Cluley explained that many do not believe that Mr McKinnon should face such a tough penalty, as he was not motivated by money.

He said: "He was basically a lone conspiracy theory nut with a UFO obsession.

"There's a feeling generally that the USA might be trying to make a bit of an example of him, particularly because it appears that their computer systems were very poorly defended."

Mr Cluley was commenting following the publication of a poll by the data security software developer Sophos, which indicated that seven in ten IT professionals do not believe he should be extradited.

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