Lawmakers are looking to make harsher punishments for botnet herders. Botnet laws are sure to shake things up. The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations, or RICO, law & Internet Spyware (I-SPY) Prevention Act are examples of such laws. Once passed, these laws will be a signifigant change to federal computer law.
“Today’s botnet herders have hundreds of thousands of computers at their command and use technically sophisticated ways to hide their headquarters, making it easy for them to make millions from spam and credit card theft. They can also be used to direct floods of fake traffic at a targeted website in order to bring down a rival, extract protection money or less frequently, used to make a political point in the case of attacks on Estonia and the Church of Scientology.” — Wired
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff speaks about computer security at the RSA Conference on information security in San Francisco, Tuesday, April 8, 2008.
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