Study: Most nations' laws lag on cybercrime

In this story: 'Serious threat' RELATED STORIES, SITES

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Most nations' laws do little to deter crime in cyberspace, a study by a firm that runs a U.N.-backed network of Internet policy officials showed.

Thirty-three of 52 nations surveyed had not yet updated their criminal codes to deal with any offence tied to the use of computers, according to McConnell International, the Washington consulting company that carried out the study.

Ten had enacted laws to address five or fewer of the 10 types of offences at issue, while nine said they were prepared to prosecute six types of offences or more.

	MESSAGE BOARD
Security on the Net

The survey showed that U.S. laws covered nine of the 10 crimes. Only the Philippines, where a devastating recent computer virus originated, had enacted laws to cover all 10 types of crimes.

The offenses covered by the survey were data-related crimes, including interception, modification and theft; network tampering, including interference and sabotage; "crimes of access," including hacking and virus distribution; and computer-associated crimes such as aiding and abetting cyber criminals, computer fraud and computer forgery.

Extending the rule of law into cyberspace is widely considered critical for electronic commerce to reach its full potential in a highly networked world.

"In cyberspace, archaic laws often make crime and punishment rather distant relatives," Bruce McConnell, the report's principal author and company president, said in an interview.

The survey is to be released formally at a panel discussion on Thursday addressing moves in Europe toward the first treaty aimed at building a uniform framework for national cybercrime laws.

Last week, the United States endorsed the gist of the proposed cybercrime pact drafted by the 41-nation Council of Europe, which hopes to wrap up the drafting process this month after more than a decade of work.

"Left unchallenged, computer crime poses a serious threat to the health and safety of our citizens, and may stifle the Internet's power as a tool to communicate, engage in commerce, and expand people's educational opportunities around the globe," the U.S. Justice Department said in a December 1 posting on its cybercrime Web site.

For the survey, McConnell queried Internet policy officials from Albania to Zimbabwe on the network he runs for the U.N. Working Group on Informatics, an ad hoc panel under the Economic and Social Council.

The study began after the Philippines, citing inadequate laws, dropped charges in August against the alleged perpetrator of the "Love Bug" virus that jammed electronic mail networks in May. Damages from that incident were estimated in the billions, including from hard-hit companies like Ford Motor Co. and Lucent Technologies Inc., whose communications were disrupted.

The Philippines has since distinguished itself as the only nation surveyed to indicate it now has laws on the books to prosecute all 10 types of cybercrime identified in the survey.

Unless crimes were defined in a similar manner across jurisdictions, coordinated international law enforcement would remain very difficult, posing serious threats to global information lifelines, the study said.

"In the network world, no island is an island," added McConnell, who headed the U.N.-supported, World Bank-funded center that coordinated international efforts to prepare for the Year 2000 computer glitch.

Surveyed were Albania, Australia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burundi, Canada, Chile, China, Cuba, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Egypt, Estonia, Ethiopia, Fiji, France, Gambia, Hungary, Iceland, India, Iran, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lebanon, Lesotho, Malaysia, Malta, Mauritius, Moldova, Morocco, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Norway, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Romania, South Africa, Spain, Sudan, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States, Vietnam, Yugoslavia, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Group voices concern over EU cybercrime plan
December 5, 2000
The Netherlands adopts cybercrime pact
November 30, 2000
Cyber cop unit to fight Internet crime
November 13, 2000
Executives call for delay in cybercrime pact
November 8, 2000
New Interpol chiefs to tackle cybercrime
November 3, 2000
Senate committee approves watered-down anti-hacker bill
October 10, 2000

Cybercrime Division of the U.S. Department of Justice
Council of Europe
Text of the draft

Note: Pages will open in a new browser window

External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.