Cybercrime, an Elusive Target

Hello Law Buffs and Calves!

Have you ever had a virus on your PC or a web account hacked? What about something worse like having your identity stolen or a bank account compromised? Cybercrime is an increasingly real threat to individuals and organizations as the world becomes more digitally connected by the day, and cybercrime laws are trying to keep up.

Today we share 6 interesting sources for cybercrime articles, cases, and laws.

A big case from 2021 was the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack. “[T]he DarkSide ransomware attack against Colonial Pipeline – the operator of the largest fuel pipeline in the US – in May 2021 was one of the most impactful cyber incidents of recent years. Indeed, it may have prompted concerted action against ransomware gangs at long last – time will tell.”

Check out this blog post that provides a timeline looking back at “some of the biggest moments in cybersecurity history from 2009-2019.”

These seven articles look at major historical cybercrime cases such as “a Russian’s hacking of a U.S. bank in 1994 [that] may have been the first online bank robbery”.

“Article 5.5 of Title 18 of the Colorado Revised Statutes is devoted to computer crimes. Because many crimes that have long existed are now being committed by computers, the state legislature has added this article.”

Interested in federal cybercrime laws and statutes? This extensive manual published by the Office of Legal Education Executive Office for United States Attorneys “examines the federal laws that relate to computer crimes.” Laws covered in this manual include the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (18 U.S.C. § 1030), the Wiretap Act (18 U.S.C. § 2511(1)), and other network crime statutes such as Unlawful Access to Stored Communications (18 U.S.C. § 2701), Identity Theft (18 U.S.C. § 1028(a)(7)), Communication Interference (18 U.S.C. § 1362), and more.

Looking at cybercrime in the European Union. “The aim of our study is to analyse the legal regime of preventing and combating cybercrime and the legal aspects of cybersecurity, to examine the level of protection ensured through current laws and to propose improvements to the existing legislative framework.”