Saturday, July 13, 2013

Hackers Will Face Stiffer Sentences in Europe

EU lawmakers have decided to toughen criminal penalties for hackers. Right now there’s no harmonized legislation within the 28 member states, where sentences vary drastically. So, the decision will enforce national sentences of at least 2 years for illegal access to information systems.


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According to media reports, the cyber intruders who take on infrastructure targets can face a sentence of 5 years or even more. At the same time, penalties for unauthorized intercepting communications or developing software for these purposes are also being increased. Apparently, the governments are still able to do this, at least to some extent.

Moreover, the new framework would make an attempt to pursue organizations which benefit from botnets or hire hackers to steal trade secrets. Entities who engage in such kind of practices will be responsible for all offenses committed on their behalf. Nevertheless, it would take up to 2 years to enforce the decision and fix national criminal law accordingly.

In the meantime, experts admit that even after the law is enforced, there will remain a number of European countries who are not going to enter the European Union and therefore won’t have to enforce its laws. This means that the hackers and botnet operators will be able to move to Belarus, Bosnia or Serbia, because they are still under Moscow’s paws and will not enter the EU any time soon, if ever.

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