Estonia planning to treat cyber attacks as crimes of terror

17.09.2007

TALLINN, Sep 17, BNS - As cyber attacks are becoming an increasingly common means of attack, Estonian lawmakers are about to mull amendments to the penal code that would count severe offenses committed online as crimes of terror, the daily Postimees reported.

A computer attack would become an act of terrorism when committed with the purpose of terrorism. Under existing law, crimes of terror are crimes whose goal is to seriously upset or destroy the country's political, constitutional, economic or societal order.

It is also a crime of terror if someone tries to force some action of refraining from some action on a country or international organization, or attempts to seriously frighten residents.

Crimes of terrorism are punishable with 5 to 25 years or life in jail.

The Estonian Ministry of Justice started drafting the amendments after the cyberattacks that targeted Estonia's government agencies, major banks and newspapers in April and May. The current laws deal with computer crime as something that has personal or financial gain as the final aim, which was not the case with the spring attacks against Estonia.

Besides, sentences for other computer-related crimes are about to be made longer. After the amendments take effect it will be possible to punish hackers with a maximum three years in jail instead of the present one year. For computer frauds and distributors of viruses caught on a repeated offense or having caused extensive damage the maximum punishment will be five years.

The ministry wishes to add to the penal code an article dealing with the preparation to commit a cyber offense, which would deal with cases when hackers make, use or disseminate a computer netork element, program, password or code for the purpose of committing a cyber offense.

The bill is based on the Council of Europe convention against cyber crimes.

Tallinn newsroom, +372 610 8863, sise@bns.ee