Fines, Jail Time, and Criminal Charges for DDoS Attacks

**Executive Summary:** This report describes Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks—what they are, common types, and how major legal frameworks (US CFAA, UK Computer Misuse Act, EU directive) treat them as crimes—outlining potential penalties (fines, jail time, civil suits), notable cases and the illegality of DDoS-for-hire services, and recommending defenses such as traffic filtering, cloud-based protection, incident response planning, and third-party risk monitoring while highlighting SecurityScorecard's SCDR offering.