Can employees be sued for unauthorized use of company passwords?

A federal appellate court says no, absent hacking. In the case, an employee working remotely with another employee tried to resolve a licensing issue and was given a list of company passwords for a licensing platform. This was unauthorized and it violated company policy. The company sued them under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. This law prohibits employees from accessing company computers without authorization or exceeding authorized access. Here, the court said the employees did not exceed authorized access because they were authorized to use company computers and they used legitimate passwords to get into the system; there was no hacking. They may have violated company policy, but not the law. The court noted that passwords that protect proprietary business information were not themselves trade secrets because they did not have economic value. #IdeaoftheDay