Legal Aspects of Cybersecurity Artur Appazov

6.2
 
Hacktivism and Criminalization 
Some commentators propose that targeting hacktivism (as opposed to hacking) in 
criminalization efforts will most obviously minimize a threshold problem in the larger 
cybersecurity debate.
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Perhaps the problem is that criminalization of hacktivism is too 
complex a legal issue involving specific intent to promote, inter alia, political goals. Also, it 
might also be challenging from the perspective of social acceptability of such crime. The 
examples of the Anonymous and Anonymous-led cyberattacks discussed above are 
illustrative precisely because of the ‘Robin Hood’ flavor of the Anonymous intent. Just as 
the mafia was once singled out as the face of organized crime, governmental authorities 
should capitalize on Anonymous’s visibility when discussing cybersecurity with the general 
public. This singling-out of Anonymous would not be unwarranted. According to a 2012 
report published by Verizon, hacktivists (generally) overtook cybercriminals as the group 
responsible for the largest amount of damage resulting from cyberattacks in absolute 
dollar figures. Moreover, Anonymous specifically has high public recognition due its 
reliance on social media (Twitter feeds, YouTube pages, and websites), branding 
mechanisms (iconic Guy Fawkes masks and naming practices), and politically-charged 
viewpoints in the course of conducting cyberattacks on highprofile victims. Undoubtedly, 
sizable sectors of the American public followed or were affected by the 
PayPal/Visa/MasterCard cyberattacks, the Sony outage, and the Occupy Movement 
protests.
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On the other hand, hacktivism is an umbrella term that covers a number of acts that rather 
than being a unique activity as such. This is at least true for the objective elements. Some of 
these acts are already criminalized in various jurisdictions. These acts constitute such 
crimes as, for example, illegal access to, interception and interference with computer 
124
Id. at. 
125
Kelly, B
OSTON 
U
NIVERSITY 
L
AW 
R
EVIEW
, 1706 (2012). 
126
Id. at, 1706-1707. 

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data.
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Hacktivism, however, may differ in its subjective element, that is the specific intent 
to achieve a specific goal or result.