Computer Misuse Act: Will it Finally Change?

Two recent court decisions highlighted perceived shortcomings of the Computer Misuse Act 1990 (the "Act"), which may finally be remedied later this year.

The first case concerned a denial of service attack. David Lennon allegedly downloaded a "mail-bombing" program called Avalanche from the Internet, which he then used to send approximately 5 million emails to his ex-employer. The majority of those e-mails purported to come from the company's Human Resources Manager.

He was arrested and charged under section 3(1) of the Act. This states that a person is guilty of an offence if he does any act which causes an unauthorised modification of the contents of any computer. Under the Act, a modification is unauthorised if the person whose act causes it is not himself entitled to determine whether the modification should be made, and he does not have consent to the modification from any person who is so entitled.