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The Computer Misuse Act ( Cma )

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The Computer Misuse Act (CMA)is an act of the parliament of the UK redacted in 1990 as a measure to cope with the new technological threats. Old traditional forms of crime such as harassment and fraud offences are nowadays often being committed electronically via computers or the internet.In the last few years new forms of e-crime are appearing, using new technologies such as Denial of Service (DOS) attack and pishing committed by offenders with good technical knowledge in IT. Thus, laws in our society need to be updated to deal with the new forms of crime. The CMA was enacted after some cyber attacks, for instance the hacking attack against British Telecom (BT) committed by Robert Schifreen and Stephen Gold, between 1984 and 1985, using conventional devices such as a personal computer, to surf the BT network after obtaining the username and password of an IT engineer. They also had access to the personal mailbox of some members of the royal family. They were fined respectively £750 and £600 after being prosecuted. Thus,the law in the UK has been revised and, for instance, since 2006,crimes such as to attempt or achieve unauthorised access to a computer or network to alter information, or to write and circulate a computer virus ,worm or trojan horse is punishable with a maximum of 10 years in prison. The CMA encompasses a wide range of activities including DOS attacks,but there is often much misinformation and ignorance concerning the legislation and even on the websites

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