Federal justice minister Heiko Maas will seek to criminalize the buying and selling of stolen data following Tuesday’s news of the mass theft of login details by a Russian hacker group.
“At the moment we’re checking how we can close criminal loopholes in the area of data fencing,” the Social Democrat (SPD) politician told the Hannover-based Neue Presse.
Until now only the act of theft and the use of stolen data have been against the law, with trading in a legal grey area.
Maas went on to add that changes in the law alone would not be able to solve the problem, a view shared by other politicians.
Jens Koeppen, president of the Bundestag’s Digital Agenda committee, demanded more resources for the Federal Information Security Office (BSI).
“IT security is a totally central theme, and we shouldn’t skimp on the necessary resources,” the Christian Democrat (CDU) MP told the Nordwest-Zeitung on Friday.
“With today’s resourcing, the BSI certainly can’t meet the challenges that will be posed in the coming years.”
IT firm Hold Security announced on Tuesday that hackers had stolen 1.2 billion usernames and passwords for online profiles.
It’s not yet known how many people in Germany are affected by the data theft.
Source: The Local - DPA
http://www.thelocal.de/20140808/justice-minister-planning-new-data-theft-law-maas