Are Hacking Victims Liable?
from the popular-question dept
We just had an article about whether or not companies that fail to properly secure their customer database should be held liable for a break in, and now the NY Times (in all their "registration required" glory) have decided to take up the question as to whether or not hack attack victims can be found liable for not properly blocking the hack. I can certainly understand both sides of the issue, and they both have fairly slippery slopes. I would think that if a particular company is clearly notified of a security hole, they should then be responsible for fixing it. If they don't, then they should be found liable. Otherwise, it's too difficult to blame them for not being able to fix a hole they didn't know about. Of course, that brings up issues of how long they have to fix the hole...
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hacking lawsuits
If ISPs and other companies are liable for not patching their holes and letting hackers and viruses invade someone's system, then surely Micro$oft and other vendors are liable for letting holes get into their OS's to begin with.
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