The FBI recently published its 2017 Internet Crime Report highlighting trends and statistics compiled by the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (“IC3”) during 2017. The report compiles data from a total of 301,580 complaints which reported losses of over $1.4 billion. In addition to an explanation of the IC3’s history and operations, the report includes five “hot topics” from 2017: business email compromise (“BEC”), ransomware, tech support fraud, extortion, and the Justice Department’s Elder Justice Initiative.
Business Email Compromise: This category of attack targets [...] Read more
Under a Vermont law, data brokers that process information regarding Vermont residents are now subject to registration and security requirements beginning January 1, 2019. Included in the new law are three notable components: (1) a broad statutory definition of a “data broker,” (2) an annual registration requirement for data brokers, and (3) reporting on data broker security breaches.
Definition of a “Data Broker”
The law takes a technology-neutral approach to its definition of a “data broker,” instead defining the term based on the normal functions of the business. The statute [...] Read more
Alston & Bird’s Privacy & Data Security Team has been named to the first-annual Above The Law (ATL) Top Law Firm Privacy Practice Index. Firms named to the Index were rated by nearly 300 in-house counsel on the “strength and quality” of their data privacy and/or cybersecurity practices. ATL also assessed firms on thought leadership in the area of privacy through their publication of white papers, blogging, media contributions, and speaking engagements.
To read more about the Index, click here. [...] Read more
The Securities and Exchange Commission’s $35 million settlement with Altaba Inc., the successor in interest to Yahoo! Inc., is the first civil penalty of its kind for a data breach and underscores the agency’s increasing focus on public companies’ cybersecurity disclosure obligations. A cross-practice team from our Securities Litigation and Cybersecurity Preparedness & Response groups examined the SEC action in an advisory published on April 27, 2018.
To read the full advisory, please click here. [...] Read more
The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit recently affirmed the dismissal of a putative class action brought by financial institutions against Schnuck Markets, Inc., following a data breach impacting Schnuck beginning late 2012. The plaintiffs attempted to assert claims of negligence, negligence per se, various contract claims, and violation of Illinois consumer protection laws, alleging damages in the form of employee time to investigate and resolve fraud claims, payments to indemnify customers for fraudulent charges, and lost interest and transaction fees based on changes in [...] Read more
On April 16, 2018, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the United Kingdom’s National Cyber Security Centre issued a joint Technical Alert (TA), alerting the worldwide cyber exploitation of network infrastructure devices by Russian state-sponsored cyber actors. The TA explains primary targets to be government and private-sector organizations, critical infrastructure providers, and the Internet service providers (ISPs) supporting these sectors. The affected systems include: Generic Routing Encapsulation (GRE) Enabled Devices; Cisco Smart [...] Read more
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued a press release announcing its unanimous approval of a statement by SEC Chairman Jay Clayton and interpretive guidance (the “2018 Guidance”) to assist public companies in preparing disclosures about cybersecurity risks and incidents. This is the first interpretive guidance published by the full Commission on the topic of cybersecurity for public companies, and it may foreshadow increased SEC action to protect investors from the potential negative effects of increasingly common large-scale data breaches. The 2018 Guidance formalizes and expands [...] Read more
“To Harmonize or Not To Harmonize: That Is the Question.” With the the GDPR fast approaching on May 25, 2018, European Member States are getting ready with the implementation of national legislation. Although the GDPR is a regulation, and directly applicable in all Member States, it has left room for country-specific legislation in several different regards (such as the processing of employee data or individual rights restrictions). Most Member States still only have draft legislation at this point, but the expectation (or at least intention) is that each country will have adopted legislation [...] Read more
By Jay Repko
A California district court recently dismissed—for the second time—consumer claims that technology giant Lenovo Inc. violated New York’s Deceptive Acts and Practices Statute by selling laptops with preinstalled VisualDiscovery software that allegedly invades users’ privacy and exposes users to security breaches. In reaching this decision, Judge Haywood S. Gilliam, Jr. concluded that dismissal was warranted for two reasons: (i) the plaintiffs lacked standing and (ii) the plaintiffs failed to adequately allege actual damages.
By its very terms, New York’s Deceptive [...] Read more
On December 5, 2017, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) released a revised draft of its proposed updates to its Framework for Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity. The revised draft includes a new section on communicating with stakeholders about cybersescurity requirements, addresses stakeholder concerns regarding cybersecurity supply chain risk management and measuring cybersecurity risks and benefits, and addresses six new topics, including the Cyber-Attack Lifecycle. NIST has updated both the Framework and its accompanying Roadmap.
The revised Framework includes [...] Read more
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