Legal protection for ethical hacking under Computer Misuse Act is only the first step

An opinion piece argues the UK should modernize the Computer Misuse Act to explicitly enable legitimate security research and grow the ethical hacking community, drawing on the Prestel hack’s legacy and today’s large-scale cybercrime reality. It advocates creating accessible, logged, and incentivized pathways—similar to TryHackMe and bug-bounty models—with clear legitimacy standards, so thousands of vetted participants can scrutinize live infrastructure and strengthen national cybersecurity.