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Types of activities that will become illegal under the proposed laws include making or supplying “hacking tools”- computer programmes or code that can help crack passwords or bypass security systems<\/strong> – and will be punishable by up to two years in prison.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Isn’t this legitimate action for any security enthusiast, hobbiest or professional involved in penetration testing or vulnerability assessment?<\/p>\n
The law will also be clarified to make it illegal to hamper the operation of a computer, closing a loophole that has made it difficult to prosecute hackers for so-called “denial of service” attacks in which hackers bombard a computer system with hundreds of thousands of requests for information over the internet, so the servers are overloaded and cannot function.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I mean laws are all well and good, but the politicians have to wary and make sure they aren’t hurting people in the wrong places.<\/p>\n
A major problem with the UK law at present (which called for this revamp) is under UK law DoS attacks (Denial of Service) are not illegal.<\/p>\n
It can cost online companies millions of pounds in lost business when their websites are unavailable, but laws are not clear on whether simply stopping a computer from working is illegal.<\/p>\n
Jeremy Beale, head of e-business at the CBI employers’ group, said: “There have been very few prosecutions under the Computer Misuse Act to date, but the new laws could give security a wider currency with businesses.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I agree we need to protect legitimate business, but please, be reasonable with the laws and don’t punish us who are trying to educate and secure the world.<\/p>\n
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