Distributed denial-of-service attacks (DDoS), where targets are deluged with requests for information, will be made a criminal offence in Sweden from 1 June.

According to a draft amendment to existing hacking laws, perpetrators will face a maximum sentence of two years' imprisonment. There are currently no laws banning the attacks in Sweden.

Last year, Swedish hackers launched a DDoS attack against the websites of the Swedish government and Swedish police after police closed controversial BitTorrent site The Pirate Bay. Both sites were offline for a couple of hours. A group calling themselves World Wide Hackers claimed responsibility for the attacks in a phone call to Aftonbladet newspaper.

The new law will ban all attacks, regardless of whether they are carried out automatically (through botnets) or manually, according to Swedish news site The Local. Conspiracy to carry out an attack will also be made a criminal offence. Distributed denial-of-service attacks are already illegal in many European countries. ®