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US Computer Fraud and Abuse Act

Title 18 United States Code Section 1030, which is more commonly known as the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, was originally drafted in 1984, but still serves as an important piece of legislation related to the prosecution of computer crimes. The law has been amended numerous times.

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What do bot herders, phreakers, the New York Times attackers, and the authors of Blaster and Melissa all have in common? They were all convicted, in part, as a result of Title 18 United States Code Section 1030, the frequently amended Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. This law has provided for the largest number of computer crime convictions in the United States. Almost all of the notorious cyber criminals to receive convictions were prosecuted under this law. under this statute. The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act was instrumental in the successful prosecution of Albert Gonzales, who compromised Heartland Payment Systems and TJX; Adrian Lamo, the “homeless hacker” who broke into the New York Times and Microsoft; Kevin Mitnick, perhaps the most widely known of all computer-related felons; and Jeanson James Ancheta, one of the first persons to be prosecuted for his role as a bot herder.

The goal of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act was to develop a means of deterring and prosecuting acts that damaged federal interest computers. “Federal interest computer” includes government, critical infrastructure, or financial processing systems; the definition also referenced computers engaging in interstate commerce. With the ubiquity of Internet-based commerce, this definition can be used to justify almost any Internet-connected computer as being a protected computer. The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act criminalized actions involving intentional attacks against protected computers that resulted in aggregate damages of $5000 in 1 year.

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The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act criminalized actions that resulted in damages of $5000 to protected computers in 1 year. In 2008 the Identity Theft Enforcement and Restitution Act was passed which amended the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. One of the more important changes involved removing the requirement that damages should total $5000. Another important amendment made the damage of 10 or more computers a felony.