Computer Fraud and Abuse Act

Computer Forensics Fees And CFAA Damages

One of the challenges when prosecuting CFAA cases comes from the difficulty of aggregating the direct damages. You may be able to prove that the unauthorized access or hacking activity ocurred but the direct damages to the system may not add up to the threshold amount. That was the defense in this case. The defendants argued that PolyOne had not shown that it suffered either damage or loss. Loss means any reasonable cost to any victim, including the cost of responding to an offense or conducting a damage assessment. I think that in this case, the Court got it mostly right.