Computer Hacking

Computer hacking, codified in most jurisdictions as unauthorized computer access or unauthorized access to a computer system, is the offense of intentionally accessing a computer, network, or protected data without permission, or exceeding the access one is authorized to have, regardless of whether the access is used to steal data, cause damage, or simply to demonstrate the intrusion was possible. Many statutes grade the offense by the harm caused or the intent behind the access, distinguishing unauthorized access alone from access committed to obtain financial information, to damage or disable a system, or to further another offense such as fraud or extortion, with the more serious variants generally carrying substantially harsher penalties. The offense is among the foundational categories of cybercrime, and its legal development has had to continually adapt to evolving technology, since concepts developed for physical trespass and property crime translate imperfectly to unauthorized access of intangible data and remote systems, a challenge most major cybercrime statutes were specifically drafted to address from the 1980s and 1990s onward. Computer hacking investigations rely on the forensic discipline of digital forensics to trace an intrusion through system logs, network traffic, and recovered data, and the offense sits at the root of many other named cyber offenses, since unauthorized access is frequently the first step toward a subsequent offense such as data theft, ransomware deployment, or further fraud.