Is it illegal to log into someone else’s account if you know their password?

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Is it illegal to log into someone else’s account if you know their password?

Is it illegal to log into someone else’s account if you know their password?

Star Kashman

new york, USA

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unlawful to sign into someone's account if you already know their password. Now this is complicated but I would say most likely yes sorry I have to plug my phone in over here federally this is unlawful under the Computer Fraud Abuse Act which prohibits accessing something without authorization. So let's say you have someone's password but you don't have consent from them to log into their account or log in beyond a typical scenario which brings me to point two under the Computer Fraud Abuse Act which says you cannot also exceed authorized access. So let's say that you are an employer or were an employer of a company you had a password to log in for them and then your employment is terminated. It can't be assumed that after your employment is terminated you could still log into that account. Similarly if you do have consent to use someone's login while you're dating them and then you break up it's best to steer clear and not log into someone's account. So hacking is certainly unlawful if you do have consent from an individual however let's say you're an ethical hacker let's say you are dating someone in the process of dating them and they give you clear written consent that yes you can use my login credentials then you're in the clear especially with ethical hackers if you get written consent yes you can try to hack into our website you can use our credentials to log in and do this and this with it just stick to what is outlined that you can use the account for don't exceed authorized access and make sure that you're only logging in with consent otherwise do not do it because it could be incredibly unlawful and there could be both civil and criminal penalties for doing so.

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