House of Representatives passes spyware legislation

Legislation has been passed by the House of Representatives to fight the rising tide of Internet spyware and other scams.

Gaining unauthorized access to a PC in order to carry out another federal offense will now be a criminal offense in its own right and could incur http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifa five-year prison term. And stealing or transmitting personal information in order to defraud somebody or damage a computer could be punishable with a prison term of up to two years.

The bill was sponsored by Democrat Zoe Lofgren, who claimed that 90 percent of Americans have spyware on their computers. Ms Lofgren said that spyware "is one of the biggest threats to consumers on the internet". Co-sponsoring the bill was Bob Goodlatte, a Republican, who said that it "protects consumers" and online businesses.

Included in the bill is an allocation of $10 million to help the Justice Department fight various computer scams, including phishing. Levels of malware have skyrocketed over the last year at a greater rate than in preceding years, according a recent report. In their most recent report, IBM's internet security systems researchers found over 7,200 vulnerabilities, most of which could be exploited by attackers.

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