No, the CFAA Does Not Require Taking Actions to Prevent the Hacking of Others

For all of the things the CFAA may (or may not) require, it does not require taking actions to prevent the hacking of others. We are not (yet) the guardians of the hacking universe!

In a factually interesting case that offers a great read on attorney professionalism, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has confirmed that the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), 18 USC § 1030, does not require taking actions to prevent others from hacking into websites — even when the allegation is being made of internet service providers (ISP) that allegedly failed to take actions to prevent the hacking of their users websites.

In Lightspeed Media Corp. v. Smith, 761 F.3d 699 (7th Cir. 2014), the court addressed an appeal brought after the district court granted a motion to dismiss all claims, including the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act claim, which the court said was frivolous:

Lightspeed’s suit against the ISPs was premised on the notion that because the ISPs challenged appellants’ subpoena of the personally identifiable information of Smith’s 6,600 “co-conspirators,” they somehow became part of a purported plot to steal Lightspeed’s content. If there was any conceivable merit in that theory, then perhaps fees would have been inappropriate. But there was not.

Count I alleged that the ISPs violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), 18 U.S.C. §§ 1030 and 1030(g), by failing to prevent hacking. The only alleged assistance to hackers, however, was the challenge to the subpoena. As expansive as the CFAA is, see Orin S. Kerr, Vagueness Challenges to the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, 94 MINN. L. REV. 1561, 1563-65 (2010), this is a frivolous charge.

The Plaintiff’s original allegations are set forth below:

We are not guardians of the hacking universe!

(link to Lightspeed’s full First Amended Complaint)

For all of the criticism of the expansiveness and unpredictability of the CFAA, and much of it is well deserved, we can now be confident that it does not impose a duty to take steps to prevent the hacking of others — and thank God!