Campaigners call on Truss to change UK’s archaic hacking laws

The CyberUp coalition, a gaggle of companies, commerce associations, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and legal professionals drawn from throughout the cyber safety neighborhood have known as on the incoming prime minister Liz Truss to shortly push by long-awaited reforms to the Computer Misuse Act (CMA) of 1990.

The campaigners argue that the CMA is old-fashioned and, as its wording presently stands, prevents cyber safety professionals and hackers from having the ability to defend UK organisations from cyber assaults with out risking prosecution for unauthorised entry to a pc.

In a letter to Truss, who gained the race to develop into Conservative chief and due to this fact prime minister on Monday, the campaigners mentioned the CMA is stifling the safety business and known as on her to reform it posthaste, “so that the UK’s ethical cyber security professionals can contribute to defending the UK from cyber threats, free from the fear of prosecution.”

The authorities promised reform in 2021, however this course of has stalled within the Home Office, which has but to present any response to the views it obtained throughout an information-gathering train, though the campaigners say that by a freedom of data (FoI) request they’ve been in a position to set up that 66% of respondents to the evaluate had been involved that the prevailing CMA doesn’t sufficiently shield reliable cyber exercise.

The campaigners are additional making the case for reform based mostly on the continuing cyber menace posed by Russia. They informed Truss: “You will, of course, be all too aware of the increased cyber threat posed by our adversaries, not least following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. We believe this strengthens the case for prioritising efforts to reform the Computer Misuse Act to include a statutory defence.”

They added: “You lead a government that is already investing millions of pounds to foster a constructive business environment for technology companies. Given this, it would seem remiss not to take the opportunity of this revenue-neutral step towards doing just that. A statutory defence in the Computer Misuse Act would mark the UK out in having a world-leading cyber crime regime and foster investment in what is already a high-growth sector.”

Former National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) CEO Ciaran Martin, who’s amongst a variety of distinguished neighborhood names to have put their signatures to the letter, mentioned: “I do think the [Computer Misuse] Act is having a chilling effect on the community of researchers. Hacking is not a bad word and there are highly ethical ways to develop expertise in this area, and you certainly don’t want people trembling with fear that they might be violating the criminal law.”

NCC Group CTO Ollie Whitehouse added: “With the cyber threats dealing with the UK ever rising, now could be the time for the federal government to reform our pre-internet period legislation to embrace a statutory defence. Doing so will unleash the total reservoir of expertise within the UK cyber safety business in service of our collective nationwide cyber defence.

“The government reviewed the legislation last May, [and] beyond holding statements no material updates have been provided since. With a new administration soon to assume office, I would strongly encourage ministers to push forward with the reforms and make us all safer.”