Law and governanceChapter 17

Ethical hacking: what the law allows

Unauthorised access, hacking tools, written authorisation, bug bounties, reporting to ANSSI: what French law really allows a security researcher to do.

Presented byNestor

11 min readUpdated on 2 October 2026

What you will learn

Know the offences against computer systems in the French Criminal Code (Articles 323-1 to 323-8) and their penalties
Understand why merely “remaining” in a system can be punished, even without breaking in
Check that a penetration test authorisation really protects you, including towards the host or cloud provider
Tell apart bug bounties, coordinated disclosure, reporting to ANSSI and whistleblower status
Know the duty of software publishers to notify their vulnerabilities to ANSSI

Free chapter with your account

Chapter 1 is free to read. Chapters 2 to 21, like the Junior, Senior and Expert levels of the Cyber Quiz, are free too: all you need is a free KrakenShield account with a confirmed email address.

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