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UK court rules DoS attacks are not illegal

November 02, 2005

 
At Wimbledon Magistrates Court in London, District Judge Kenneth Grant ruled Wednesday that denial-of-service attacks were not illegal under the U.K's Computer Misuse Act (CMA).


 

 

 

 
Judge Grant ruled that the defendant, who can't be named for legal reasons, had not broken the CMA, under which he was charged. The teenager was accused of sending 5 million e-mail messages to his ex-employer that caused the company's e-mail server to crash.

"I feel very happy. This has been going on for two years. At the moment, this is no longer hanging over my head," the teenager told ZDNet UK.

The CMA, which was introduced in 1990, does not specifically include a denial-of-service attack as a criminal offense. However, it does explicitly outlaw the "unauthorized access" and "unauthorized modification" of computer material. Section 3 of the act, under which the defendant was charged, concerns unauthorized data modification and tampering with systems.

The defense counsel argued that sending a flood of unsolicited e-mails did not constitute unauthorized access or modification, as the targeted company's e-mail server was set up for the purpose of receiving e-mail messages.

In a written ruling, Judge Grant stated: "In this case, the individual e-mails caused to be sent each caused a modification which was in each case an 'authorized' modification. Although they were sent in bulk resulting in the overwhelming of the server, the effect on the server is not a modification addressed by section 3 (of the CMA)."

RELATED STORY:
British teen faces court over e-mail bomb charges

 

 
   

 

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