Whether criminals are hacking our passwords, or Anonymous is simply making a statement, the disruptions and data breaches exact a heavy toll in terms of time, money, and security.How that digital revenge is wreaked, and whether any of it is legal, are issues being actively debated right now\u2014to the extent that anyone wants to talk about it, let alone admit to trying it. Hacking back at a cyber-assailant is tempting, but it’s just as illegal as the original cyberattack.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This law has undergone numerous revisions since it was first enacted in 1986, but Title 18, Sec. 1030 is clear on the point that using a computer to intrude upon or steal something from another computer is illegal. \u201cThere is no law that actually allows you to engage in an attack,\u201d says Ray Aghaian, a partner with McKenna Long & Aldridge, and a former attorney with the Department of Justice\u2019s Cyber & Intellectual Property Crimes Section.\u201c<\/p>\n
According to Ahlm, the companies tracking the bad guys collect vast amounts of data on Internet activity and can hone in on specific \u201cactors\u201d who engage in criminal activity. \u201cWithout touching or hacking the individual, they can tell you how trustworthy they are, where they are, what kind of systems they use,” says Ahlm.<\/p>\n
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While private companies cannot take offensive action with any such intelligence, they can use it defensively to thwart suspicious actors if they’re found to be sniffing around company data. \u201cBased off your intelligence of who\u2019s touching you,\u201d says Ahlm, \u201cyou can selectively disconnect them or greatly slow them down from network access.\u201d<\/p>\n
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In the grand scheme of fight-back tricks, this is one that causes relatively little harm but does a lot of good,” says Matthew Prince, co-founder and CEO. This company drew raves\u2014as well as criticism\u2014for creating a way to spam back at spammers, clogging their systems and preventing them from sending out more spam.<\/p>\n
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Hacking back can also have unintended consequences, such as damaging hijacked computers belonging to otherwise innocent individuals, while real criminals remain hidden several layers back on the Internet.<\/p>\n
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