New Bill to Update Computer Crimes Code

It has been a very long time since USC 18 Sec 1030 has been updated to reflect the changing cyber-crime landscape.  A new bill will reduce the threshhold for damages, provide more funding to train law enforcement officials in the area of cyber-crime and forensics, and will put part of the law under the racketeering laws of RICO. 

This could mean expanded wiretap powers for law enforcement, and penalties for distributing malware, not just using malware to commit a crime.  Brian Krebs at WaPo has the full story here:

Lawmakers in the House of Representatives on Monday introduced a bill that seeks to modernize the nation’s computer crime laws and give prosecutors more leeway and resources in going after cyber crooks.

The Cyber-Security Enhancement Act of 2007 would make an important change to the damage threshold that investigators currently use to determine whether they should prosecute a given cyber crime.

Consider how much computer crime has changed in the past decade: Today, robot networks or “botnets” serve as the engine behind virtually all Internet crime, from spam and phishing attacks to online extortion scams. Many people who have unknowingly had their personal computer turned into a spam relay by an uninvited piece of malicious software may never suffer direct financial losses, but their machines have nonetheless been illegally accessed and used to attack and defraud others.

The bill would amend current cyber-crime penalties so that crooks would be forced to forfeit any profits from or property used in the commission of the crime, much the way convicted drug dealers often lose their fancy cars, houses and all of the other “bling” purchased with ill-gotten gains. It also would extend sentencing times for convicted crooks by bringing cyber-crime offenses under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) law, and establishing a “conspiracy to commit cyber-crimes” as a federal offense.