The Computer Misuse Act dates back to 1990, having been drafted in the late 1980s. To put this in context, while the roots of the internet can be traced back to 1969, the World Wide Web was only launched in 1989.
Accordingly, the Act is ill-equipped to deal with acts like denial of service attacks, where a server is deliberately flooded with requests for information, causing it to collapse due to overloading.
The details of the strategy will be published by the Government in February 2004. According to the Home Office, it will focus on:
both old crimes committed using new technology, such as fraud and paedophilia, as well emerging electronic crimes, such as denial of service attacks and hacking;
an analysis of the current and future nature of electronic crime, providing a framework for Government, law enforcement agencies and industry; and
ensuring existing international agreements, such as the EU Framework Decision on Attacks Against Information Systems meet the new challenges of electronic crime.
According to ComputerWeekly.com, a Home Office spokeswoman announced yesterday at a press conference that the Government will also consider stronger sentences for simple unauthorised access offences.
This is not the first time that an updating amendment to the Act has been proposed to cover denial of service attacks. Last May, the Computer Misuse (Amendment) Bill was published to deal with such attacks but, being a Private Members Bill (from Lord Northesk), it made little progress. If the Government itself is making the amendment, faster progress can be expected.
