New bill to beef up e-crime law

Home Office proposes tougher sentences for hackers and virus writers

The government today introduced a new bill to parliament, designed to stiffen penalties against cyber criminals.

The Home Office outlined details of the Police and Justice Bill to MPs, proposing that criminals who make unauthorised modifications to computers receive up to 10 years in prison.

Hackers gaining unauthorised access to computer systems could see sentences increase from six months to two years.

'The estimated cost to UK business from these sorts of electronic attacks and denial of service is estimated to be over £3bn and they continue to grow in sophistication,' a Home Office spokeswoman told Computing.

'The bill will increase penalties for hacking, viruses and other cyber crimes to reflect their severity.'

The government is also looking to clarify the 1990 Computer Misuse Act (CMA) by clearly criminalising denial of service attacks against businesses.

'In addition we are looking to amend section three of the Computer Misuse Act to clarify that all means of interference to a computer system are criminalised.'

The proposed changes will also ratify the UK's commitment to the Council of Europe’s cyber crime convention, if they become law.

The convention, backed by the UK, the US and a number of other countries, looks to promote a common criminal policy for protecting society against cyber crime. It includes all participating countries adding denial of service to their statute books as an offence.

Computing reported last year that the Home Office was planning to strengthen e-crime laws but, due to parliamentary timetabling restrictions, wanted to do so by adding amendments to a different bill rather than rewrite the CMA (Computing, 10 November).

The government has been under increasing pressure to introduce changes after a teenager, who allegedly crashed his former employer’s email systems by sending five million emails, walked free from court last year.

Derek Wyatt MP, chairman of the All Party Internet Group, has been calling for changes to the current Act for a number of years, saying that the 15-year old piece of legislation is outdated.