Hacker Expected to Pay For His Crime

Apparently the US, having not taken reasonable steps to protect its security, is now McKinnon, a hacker, to pick up the bill. A professor of security at the London School of Economics, Richard Sommer, said that damage assessments of computer security breaches should always consider “whether the victims have taken reasonable steps to limit the damage”.

McKinnon used Remotely Anywhere to hack US military computers in search of UFO secrets. The 42-year-old is facing extradition after being accused of hacking into 97 US computers and thus causing $700,000 in damages.

Sommer said hackers should not be held accountable for the “consequential loss” resulting from their intrusion into systems unprotected by “preventative measures for reasonably foreseeable hazards”. But security experts in the US say McKinnon should defnitely be liable for the full $700,000 of security checks that had to be performed in his wake. Courtesy of computerweekly.com