The FBI has arrested a government employee for illegally downloading sensitive information from a database containing detailed information on the vulnerabilities of America's dams.

Xiafen "Sherry" Chen, an employee of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), could face up to 25 years in prison and fines of as much as $1 million for allegedly accessing restricted U.S. government files, said the FBI.

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The  59-year-old Chen, who is a hydrologist currently employed at the NOAA's facility in Wilmington, Ohio, was indicted in U.S. District Court.

The FBI alleges that at various times during May 2012, Chen illegally accessed restricted areas of a protected U.S. Government computer database and downloaded "sensitive files" from the National Inventory of Dams.

According to the four-count indictment, Chen "intentionally exceeded authorized access" to the National Inventory of Dams database, and then "willfully and knowingly" stole sensitive and restricted data "involving critical national infrastructure." 

The database is maintained and controlled by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in conjunction with the National Dam Safety Review Board. It contains sensitive information on 8,100 major dams in the U.S. and their vulnerabilities. It also includes sensitive information on tens of thousands of smaller dams.

The database categorizes the dams by the number of people that could be killed in the event that a dam fails and collapses.

The indictment also accused Chen of providing materially false statements in June of 2013 to officials from the Department of Commerce Office of Security who had been investigating her activities.

The counts include one on theft of U.S. Government property, which carries a sentence of up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine; one count of illegally accessing a U.S. Government computer database, punishable by up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine; and two counts of making materially false statements to federal agents, each punishable by up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

The FBI said it arrested Chen while she was at work at the NOAA's facility in Wilmington.

In 2013, U.S. intelligence agencies reportedly traced a breach of a sensitive infrastructure database to the Chinese government. At the time, the U.S. government said that the unauthorized user was believed to be from China, and hacked into the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' National Inventory of Dams (NID) database, according to reports.

The Army Corps of Engineers immediately revoked the user's access to the database after discovering the user was not authorized, said a Corps spokesperson. The Corps did not make public the name of the alleged unauthorized user.

The NOAA is reportedly reviewing whether to take administrative action against Chen. 

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