Hackback
This piece on Foreign Policy's website highlights a topic that is growing increasingly significant, yet gets little attention: private sector entities conducting retaliatory or even anticipatory hacks against...well...whomever it is that is out there hacking or threatening to hack them. The practice raises endless legal issues. Those relating to potential tort liability are obvious enough. Those relating to domestic criminal liability are fairly apparent too (Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, for example). To this one
Published by The Lawfare Institute
in Cooperation With
This piece on Foreign Policy's website highlights a topic that is growing increasingly significant, yet gets little attention: private sector entities conducting retaliatory or even anticipatory hacks against...well...whomever it is that is out there hacking or threatening to hack them. The practice raises endless legal issues. Those relating to potential tort liability are obvious enough. Those relating to domestic criminal liability are fairly apparent too (Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, for example). To this one could add more obscure inquiries, such as whether a hack-back targeting an overseas server, individual, or organization might in some extreme contexts implicate neutrality-related laws, such as 18 USC 960. Anyway, the overall phenomenon of private sector defensive hacking would make for a nice article, perhaps something a student reading lawfare might undertake as a note.
Robert (Bobby) Chesney is the Dean of the University of Texas School of Law, where he also holds the James A. Baker III Chair in the Rule of Law and World Affairs at UT. He is known internationally for his scholarship relating both to cybersecurity and national security. He is a co-founder of Lawfare, the nation’s leading online source for analysis of national security legal issues, and he co-hosts the popular show The National Security Law Podcast.
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