Policy Observatory
Right before leaving for their winter vacation, politicians touted cybersecurity bills as the silver bullet to stopping future Sony-like hacks. The specific cybersecurity bills don't focus on advancing research and development, but on the sharing of computer threat information between the public and private sector. What these lawmakers neglect to tell the public is that the bills wouldn't have solved the Sony hack and that companies can already share information concerning computer threats.
The British government has for the first time offered an official definition of computer hacking by the security services. The definition can be found in the Home Office “draft equipment interference code of practice” released on Friday.
American and British spies hacked into the internal computer network of the largest manufacturer of SIM cards in the world, stealing encryption keys used to protect the privacy of cellphone communications across the globe, according to top-secret documents provided to The Intercept by National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden.
The hack was perpetrated by a joint unit consisting of operatives from the NSA and its British counterpart Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ. The breach, detailed in a secret 2010 GCHQ document, gave the surveillance agencies the potential to secretly monitor a large portion of the world’s cellular communications, including both voice and data.
The hacker known as Triplorita was convicted for intellectual property infringement and has to pay 167,398 euros to Egeda company and 83,600 euros to Columbia Tristar Entertainment.
Between March 2009 and February 2010 he facilitated downloading copies of newly released movies in theaters.
In October 2012, the Dutch government announced its initiative to grant law enforcement the power to covertly and remotely access “automated works” (computers, phones, etc.), under certain circumstances.
The UK government has passed new legislation that exempts GCHQ, police, and other intelligence officers from prosecution for hacking into computers and mobile phones. The changes to the Computer Misuse Act were introduced over a year ago without a real public debate and entered into force on May 3.
According to Privacy International's legal experts, the amended Computer Misuse Act "grants UK law enforcement new leeway to potentially conduct cyber attacks within the UK."