The Department of Justice has announced the indictment of seven Iranian hackers alleged to work for the Iranian government on charges stemming from a coordinated string of distributed denial of service (“DDoS”) attacks primarily against U.S. financial institutions from 2011 to 2013. One of the hackers is also charged with hacking into the supervisory control […]
National Security & Digital Crimes
DHS Establishes Information Sharing Capability and Process Required under CISA; Issues Multi-Agency Information Sharing Guidance
The Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) has posted four documents on the US Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) website to satisfy several requirements set forth in the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015 (“CISA”). Details on the four documents are provided below. By way of background, CISA was passed into law on December 18, 2015 […]
President Obama Announces Cybersecurity National Action Plan
On February 9, 2016, President Barack Obama unveiled his new Cybersecurity National Action Plan (CNAP), a comprehensive approach to confront cybersecurity challenges. As articulated in the CNAP Fact Sheet released by the White House, CNAP takes “near-term actions and puts in place a long-term strategy to enhance cybersecurity awareness and protections, protect privacy, maintain public […]
FFIEC Warns of Increase in Cyber Attacks Involving Extortion, Encourages Financial Institutions to Develop Response Programs
Last week, the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) issued a joint statement warning of an “increasing frequency and severity of cyber attacks involving extortion.” The statement warned that criminals have been extorting financial institutions using a variety of tactics, including denial of service attacks, theft of sensitive information, and use of “ransomware,” which is […]
Alston & Bird to Host Live Program and Webinar on National Security, Espionage, and Data Breaches
On October 29, Alston & Bird’s Cybersecurity Preparedness & Response Team will host a live program and webinar called National Security, Cyber Espionage and “Bulk PII” Breaches in our Washington, DC office. The program will examine the recent phenomenon of allegedly state-sponsored actors executing major cyber-attacks specifically targeting large databases of personal data for espionage […]