Court decision raises issues about sharing passwords

An appeals court has ruled that a former employee of a company, whose computer access credentials were revoked, had acted “without authorization” in violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, when he and other former employees used the login credentials of a current employee to gain access to data on the employer’s computers.

The opinion of the court is likely to be controversial as it is expected to have implications on commonplace sharing of passwords by husbands, co-workers and friends even for innocuous purposes.

One of the three judges, Stephen Reinhardt, dissented from the majority opinion, stating that “people frequently share their passwords, notwithstanding the fact that websites and employers have policies prohibiting it.”

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here