Since the Active Cyber Defense Certainty Act was introduced to the U.S. House of Representatives at the end of 2017, people in the tech industry have been forming some very strong opinions. The contentious concept of hacking back opens up a wide range of cyber defense tools to IT and security managers. Lawmakers have taken a recent interest in creating new rules that allow for more flexibility with these activities, which are illegal in most places. Currently, a private company has no legal right to defend itself against a cyberattack.

In this post for IBM’s Security Intelligence blog, I review some of the early hacking back efforts by both private and government entities and discuss some of the recent legislation.