18 U.S.C. Sec. 1030(A)(7)(A) Extortion by Threatening to Damage a Protected Computer is a federal crime defined by the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CAA). This crime occurs when an individual uses threats of damage or destruction to a computer, computer system, or computer network in order to extort money or some other form of compensation from another individual. The types of threats that are considered extortion by threatening to damage a protected computer include threats to damage or delete information, threaten to damage the physical hardware of the computer, or threaten to disable the computer or network through denial of service attacks or malicious code.