Law / United States / 
Mississippi
Mississippi Computer Crimes and Identity Theft Act, core offenses
Miss. Code Ann. §§ 97-45-1, 97-45-3, 97-45-5, 97-45-7, 97-45-9
In force.
A computer misuse rule binding public and private bodies.
- Obligation class
- Access restriction, Prohibition
- Audit expectation
- none
What it requires
- Accessing a public, unauthenticated Mississippi-connected computer or page is not, by itself, computer fraud, an offense against computer users, or an offense against computer equipment; those offenses require intent to defraud or a lack of consent from an authorized user or an equipment owner, elements a public page does not carry on its own.
- Copying or using data gained through observation of the property in public use or on public display is proper means and is a defense to the offense against intellectual property; ordinary collection from a public-facing page is likely to fit within this defense.
- Do not defraud, deny an authorized user access, disable or damage equipment, or destroy, insert, modify, copy, use, or take intellectual property without consent, by means that fall outside proper means (independent invention, lawful reverse engineering, license or authority of the owner, public observation, or published literature).
These lines are LexLint's reading of the law's text.
In the frameworks
- NIST AI RMF
- MAP 4.1Approaches for mapping AI technology and legal risks of its components – including the use of third-party data or software – are in place, followed, and documented, as are risks of infringement of a third party’s intellectual property or other rights.
- NIST AI 600-1
- GAI-RISK-09Information Security
- GAI-RISK-12Value Chain and Component Integration
- OWASP LLM Top 10
- LLM03:2026Excessive Agency
- OWASP Agentic Top 10
- ASI03Identity and Privilege Abuse
- MIT mitigations Draft
- FINOS AIGF
- AIR-PREV-018Agent Authority Least Privilege Framework
- AIR-PREV-023Agentic System Credential Protection Framework
- ETSI EN 304 223
- 5.1.2-6Access the AI system gets to other systems and data sources is minimal and risk assessed.
Our reading of where this law's duties sit in each framework. It never says that running a control meets the law. How we read a framework against the law
Identifiers refer to ETSI EN 304 223 V2.1.1 (2025-12), © ETSI 2025, all rights reserved. ETSI owns the standard; no ETSI text (titles or sentences) is reproduced here. The standard is free to download from ETSI.
If you get it wrong
Criminal exposureYes
Criminal exposure note
Each of the four offenses escalates through the same four value tiers: damage or loss under $1,000 is punishable by a fine of up to $1,000 or up to 6 months in the county jail, or both, or a suspended sentence with up to 1 year probation; $1,000 to $5,000 by a fine of up to $10,000 or up to 5 years imprisonment, or both; $5,000 to $25,000 by a fine of up to $10,000 or up to 10 years imprisonment, or both; and $25,000 or more by a fine of up to $10,000 or up to 20 years imprisonment, or both. A third or subsequent conviction where the value is at least $500 is punishable by imprisonment in the Penitentiary for up to 3 years and a fine of up to $2,000 for computer fraud or up to $1,000 for the other three offenses.
Penalty structure
The $10,000 figure is the fine cap for the three higher value tiers on each of the four offenses; the lowest tier caps the fine at $1,000.
- Rule
- Fixed only
- As of
- Currency
- USD
- Fixed cap
- 10,000
What it makes you log
Logging duty
Sections 97-45-1 to 97-45-9 define the offences of computer fraud, offences against computer users, computer equipment and intellectual property, and the proper-means exception, and grade the penalties by value. They impose no duty to create, keep, produce or review a log or record and state no territorial clause, so no hook is recorded.
- Kind
- None
- As of
What this law does
Computer fraud (Section 97-45-3) is intentionally accessing or causing to be accessed a computer, computer system, or computer network with intent to defraud, to obtain money, property or services by fraudulent means, or to insert malicious code. An offense against computer users (Section 97-45-5) is intentionally denying an authorized user access without consent, or disclosing access codes without consent.
An offense against computer equipment (Section 97-45-7) is intentionally modifying or destroying computer equipment or supplies without consent. An offense against intellectual property (Section 97-45-9) is intentionally destroying, inserting, or modifying intellectual property without consent, or disclosing, using, copying, taking, or accessing it without consent. Section 97-45-9(6) exempts disclosure, use, copying, taking, or accessing by proper means.
Section 97-45-1(v) defines proper means to include observation of the property in public use or on public display, alongside independent invention, lawful reverse engineering, license, and published literature. Each offense escalates through four value-based tiers of fine and imprisonment, with an enhanced Penitentiary term for a third or subsequent conviction. No day on which these sections came into force has been located.
When LexLint raises it
When your app profile says your app crawls the web or trains models.
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