Hackers should spend more time in prison, say MPs

A committee of MPs has thrown its weight behind an attempt to introduce longer jail terms for hackers.

The All Party Parliamentary Internet Group (APIG), a group of tech-savvy MPs, said it welcomed a Ten Minute Rule Bill presented by MP Tom Harris, calling for amendments to the Computer Misuse Act (CMA).

Harris' bill picks up on some of the recommendations from the APIG inquiry into revision of the CMA, and looks to explicitly criminalise all means of interference with a computer system, in particular creating a specific offence for denial of service attacks.

The bill would also increase the sentences for hacking under the CMA from six months to two years and from five to ten years for further related offences.

APIG chairman Derek Wyatt MP said: "We hope that the government adopts the measures proposed in the bill as a matter of urgency, reflecting the significant threat that cyber crime poses to the UK."

In his speech to the House of Commons yesterday, Harris criticised the inconsistency between the severe financial consequences of hacking attacks and the sentences currently possible to punish such attacks.

Harris said: "This is an issue that up until now hasn't been taken seriously enough. So much of the UK economy depends on the Internet, and so many services are vulnerable if we allow these attackers to go unpunished. It's time we faced up to this new threat."

Ten Minute Rule Bills are mostly seen as an awareness-raising exercise and the chances of it leading to changes in legislation in the short term are slim. However, Harris has been awarded a second reading of the bill on 2 December.