Law Commons^™

Cyber Plungers: Colonial Pipeline And The Case For An Omnibus Cybersecurity Legislation, Asaf Lubin

Articles by Maurer Faculty

The May 2021 ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline was a wake-up call for a federal administration slow to realize the dangers that cybersecurity threats pose to our critical national infrastructure. The attack forced hundreds of thousands of Americans along the east coast to stand in endless lines for gas, spiking both prices and public fears. These stressors on our economy and supply chains triggered emergency proclamations in four states, including Georgia. That a single cyberattack could lead to a national emergency of this magnitude was seen by many as proof of even more crippling threats to come. Executive Director of …

Strengthening Our Intuitions About Hacking, Jeffrey L. Vagle

Indiana Law Journal

The computer trespass analogy has served us reasonably well as a basis for cybersecurity policies and related anti-hacking laws, but computers, and our uses of them, have changed significantly in ways that stretch the computer trespass metaphor beyond usefulness. This Essay proposes an approach to expanding and strengthening our intuitions about computer security that accounts for new computing paradigms, giving courts and lawmakers additional tools for interpreting and drafting effective anti-hacking laws.

This Essay argues that many new and existing computer use scenarios leave courts unsure how existing anti-hacking laws might apply, increasing the possibility of under- or over-inclusive policies …