{"id":5787,"date":"2025-09-08T15:32:30","date_gmt":"2025-09-08T19:32:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/?p=5787"},"modified":"2025-09-08T15:32:30","modified_gmt":"2025-09-08T19:32:30","slug":"third-circuit-restricts-employers-use-of-computer-fraud-and-abuse-act-against-employees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/third-circuit-restricts-employers-use-of-computer-fraud-and-abuse-act-against-employees.html","title":{"rendered":"Third Circuit Restricts Employers&#8217; Use of Computer Fraud and Abuse Act Against Employees"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Background<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Third Circuit recently ruled that an employee&#8217;s violation of workplace cyber policies does not amount to &#8220;unauthorized access&#8221; under the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). In <em>NRA Group, LLC v. Durenleau<\/em>, the company sued two former employees for sharing passwords and accessing systems in violation of company policy, arguing that this triggered CFAA liability. The Court disagreed, finding that the CFAA was intended to target true &#8220;hacking&#8221; of protected computers, not policy breaches by employees who already had system access. The Court explained that if mere policy violations triggered the CFAA, millions of everyday employees could be treated as criminals.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Why This Matters for Employers<\/strong><\/p>\n<div class=\"read_more_link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/third-circuit-restricts-employers-use-of-computer-fraud-and-abuse-act-against-employees.html\"  title=\"Continue Reading Third Circuit Restricts Employers&#8217; Use of Computer Fraud and Abuse Act Against Employees\" class=\"more-link\">Continue Reading \u203a<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Background The Third Circuit recently ruled that an employee&#8217;s violation of workplace cyber policies does not amount to &#8220;unauthorized access&#8221; under the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). In NRA Group, LLC v. Durenleau, the company sued two former employees for sharing passwords and accessing systems in violation of company policy, arguing that this [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[463,467,65,442,247],"tags":[],"coauthors":[441,465],"class_list":["post-5787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gozde-celik","category-celik","category-insights","category-weiner","category-labor-employment-insights"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Third Circuit Restricts Employers&#039; Use of Computer Fraud and Abuse Act Against Employees &#8212; September 8, 2025 &#8212; Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C. Firm News &amp; Events<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Background The Third Circuit recently ruled that an employee&#039;s violation of workplace cyber policies does not amount to &quot;unauthorized access&quot; under the\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/third-circuit-restricts-employers-use-of-computer-fraud-and-abuse-act-against-employees.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Third Circuit Restricts Employers&#039; Use of Computer Fraud and Abuse Act Against Employees &#8212; September 8, 2025 &#8212; Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C. Firm News &amp; Events\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Background The Third Circuit recently ruled that an employee&#039;s violation of workplace cyber policies does not amount to &quot;unauthorized access&quot; under the\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/third-circuit-restricts-employers-use-of-computer-fraud-and-abuse-act-against-employees.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C. Firm News &amp; Events\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-09-08T19:32:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Joshua L. Weiner, Gozde Celik\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Joshua L. Weiner, Gozde Celik\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Third Circuit Restricts Employers' Use of Computer Fraud and Abuse Act Against Employees &#8212; September 8, 2025 &#8212; Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C. Firm News &amp; Events","description":"Background The Third Circuit recently ruled that an employee's violation of workplace cyber policies does not amount to \"unauthorized access\" under the","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/third-circuit-restricts-employers-use-of-computer-fraud-and-abuse-act-against-employees.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Third Circuit Restricts Employers' Use of Computer Fraud and Abuse Act Against Employees &#8212; September 8, 2025 &#8212; Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C. Firm News &amp; Events","og_description":"Background The Third Circuit recently ruled that an employee's violation of workplace cyber policies does not amount to \"unauthorized access\" under the","og_url":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/third-circuit-restricts-employers-use-of-computer-fraud-and-abuse-act-against-employees.html","og_site_name":"Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C. Firm News &amp; Events","article_published_time":"2025-09-08T19:32:30+00:00","author":"Joshua L. Weiner, Gozde Celik","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Joshua L. Weiner, Gozde Celik","Est. reading time":"1 minute"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/third-circuit-restricts-employers-use-of-computer-fraud-and-abuse-act-against-employees.html","url":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/third-circuit-restricts-employers-use-of-computer-fraud-and-abuse-act-against-employees.html","name":"Third Circuit Restricts Employers' Use of Computer Fraud and Abuse Act Against Employees &#8212; September 8, 2025 &#8212; Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C. Firm News &amp; Events","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/#website"},"datePublished":"2025-09-08T19:32:30+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/#\/schema\/person\/429b3bd6b52a7aa6eb9a0709bbb4d06f"},"description":"Background The Third Circuit recently ruled that an employee's violation of workplace cyber policies does not amount to \"unauthorized access\" under the","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/third-circuit-restricts-employers-use-of-computer-fraud-and-abuse-act-against-employees.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/third-circuit-restricts-employers-use-of-computer-fraud-and-abuse-act-against-employees.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/third-circuit-restricts-employers-use-of-computer-fraud-and-abuse-act-against-employees.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Insights","item":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Labor &amp; Employment","item":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/labor-employment-insights"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":4,"name":"Third Circuit Restricts Employers&#8217; Use of Computer Fraud and Abuse Act Against Employees"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/","name":"Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C. Firm News &amp; Events","description":"Published by Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/#\/schema\/person\/429b3bd6b52a7aa6eb9a0709bbb4d06f","name":"Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C.","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/3f2ca7450f0195db092bccff4fb8982e","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/a19d0fac94b8d3d657028926f65c841917c5f8f0dd3f23ad394e83f16c690e09?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/a19d0fac94b8d3d657028926f65c841917c5f8f0dd3f23ad394e83f16c690e09?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C."},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.lindabury.com"]}]}},"yoast":{"focuskw":"","title":"","metadesc":"","linkdex":"","metakeywords":"","meta-robots-noindex":"","meta-robots-nofollow":"","meta-robots-adv":"","canonical":"","redirect":"","opengraph-title":"","opengraph-description":"","opengraph-image":"","twitter-title":"","twitter-description":"","twitter-image":""},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5787"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5787\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5789,"href":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5787\/revisions\/5789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5787"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=5787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}