European Union legislators have agreed to toughen up punishment for cyber criminals, particularly the ones who attempt to breach national infrastructure and protected data.
European Union legislators have agreed to toughen up punishment for cyber criminals, particularly the ones who attempt to breach national infrastructure and protected data, reports Reuters
According to the EU decision, the attempt to access information system the perpetrator will be sentenced for two years in jail. The strictest punishment shall be given for attacks on important infrastructure such as transport, power stations and governmental computer networks. The term will be five years and over, which is longer that the sentence in the majority of member states.
According ti the agreement the sentence for interception of communications as well as development and sale of means for illegal procurement of information is to be longer as well. This applies to creation of botnets – armies of infected computers which send junk mail containing harmful links and which infect the websites with computer viruses.
Some of the botnet developers sell or rent out the contaminated devices to other perpetrators on black market. Their range of attacks includes stealing of credit card data and attacks on governmental websites. In June Microsoft corporation helped to destroy one of the largest botnets which supposedly stole 500 million USD from various bank accounts.
According to the new rules adopted by the European Union the companies that profit from botnets or the ones that hire hackers for stealing the information shall bear responsibility for all illegal actions made on their request.
The offer of the European Commission was accepted by the European Parliament in Strasbourg with 541 votes in favor and 91 ones who abstained. Nevertheless Denmark refused to adopt new rules in favor of national system of punishment. EU governments have two years to introduce new regulations into the national legislation.
Author: Alina Tarasova
Source: RIA News http://digit.ru/state/20130705/403052890.html#ixzz2Z1jYiqsj
