On January 27 and 28, 2021, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced two successful operations to disrupt two different strains of malware, Netwalker ransomware and a banking Trojan known as Emotet, which have affected victims around the globe and caused millions of dollars in damage in recent years. The law enforcement actions against Netwalker and […]
National Security & Digital Crimes
Federal Court Rules Cyber Forensic Report Is Not Protected Under Attorney-Client Privilege Or Work Product Doctrine
On January 12, 2021, Judge Boasberg (D.D.C.) ruled that a forensic report prepared for outside counsel following a cyber incident investigation was not protected under either attorney-client privilege or the work product doctrine. The investigation in question was run by outside counsel and the security firm had been retained by outside counsel. This decision is […]
Financial Regulatory Agencies Announce Proposed Rule Requiring Notice of Computer Security Incidents
On December 18, 2020, federal financial regulatory agencies jointly announced a proposed rule that would impose new and expanded reporting requirements on supervised banking organizations that experience a “computer-security incident,” requiring notice within 36 hours of any computer-security incident that rises to the level of a “notification incident.” In a significant departure from current reporting […]
SolarWinds Hack: Unparalleled Supply Chain Attack Results in Potential Compromise of Private and Public Sector Organizations
On Sunday, December 13, 2020, SolarWinds announced that it had learned of a “highly sophisticated, manual supply chain attack” by a nation state affecting its Orion Platform, which is used by a wide variety of public and private sector organizations for IT infrastructure monitoring and management. In this attack, adversaries were able to compromise the […]
DOJ Announces Indictment of Russian Hackers for Destructive Cyber-Attacks, Including Deployment of NotPetya and Olympic Destroyer Malware
On October 19, 2020, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that six Russian GRU officers had been charged in connection with a series of destructive cyber-attacks that affected victims around the globe and caused billions of dollars of damage. The Russian hackers are alleged to be a part of the group known as Sandworm, which […]