The Computer Misuse Act 1990
The Computer Misuse Act 1990
This law came in to being specifically to deal with hackers, people who seek to gain unauthorised access to computer systems. In the early days of computing, hackers were seen as 'a little bit naughty'. It soon became apparent that they could cause untold damage to national security, cause havoc with a company's legitimate operations and could steal a lot of money! Existing legislation was difficult to apply to hackers. The Government's response was the Computer Misuse Act 1990.
The act does three things.
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- It makes it illegal to access data to which you have no right. For example, you are not allowed to try to guess or find out a friend's password and then gain access to their files! You can be fined and jailed for up to 6 months.
- It makes a more serious offence of accessing data to which you have no right with the intention of carrying out other crimes. For example, if you hacked into a bank's system with the intention of stealing credit card numbers, then you would fall foul of this law. You can be fined and jailed for up to 5 years.
- It makes it illegal to change any data. If you hack into an area to which you have no right and start deleting files or modifying data then you will be breaking this law. You can be fined and jailed for up to 5 years.