Following a two-year grace period, EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) entered into force on May 25, 2018. For many companies, preparing for the GDPR was a multi-year project involving multiple teams and input or assistance from across the organization. On this blog, we have outlined the items we have seen as particularly time- or resource-intensive.
On June 29, 2018, the Data Protection Authority (DPA) of the German state of Lower Saxony (Niedersachsen) announced it would be surveying GDPR compliance among companies under its jurisdiction. Germany has 16 state-run DPAs with general [...] Read more
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
The Georgia Court of Appeals recently reaffirmed its prior conclusion that there is no duty to safeguard personal information under Georgia law. In McConnell v. Ga. Dep’t of Labor, --- S.E.2d ----, 2018 WL 2173252 (Ga. App. May 11, 2018), the Court of Appeals addressed whether a plaintiff whose social security number and other personal identifying information (“PII”) had allegedly been negligently disclosed by an employee of the Georgia Department of Labor stated a negligence claim in connection with the unauthorized disclosure.
In urging that the Court of Appeals should recognize such [...] 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
The United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit recently affirmed the district court’s dismissal of a putative class action brought by customers of the brokerage firm Scottrade in the wake of an alleged data breach impacting Scottrade in 2013. The named plaintiffs had asserted several contract-based claims against Scottrade, alleging that Scottrade had violated its contractual obligations to take adequate steps to safeguard the personal identifying information (“PII”) of its customers.
The Eighth Circuit first considered whether the plaintiffs had adequately alleged standing. [...] Read more
On May 23, 2017, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals issued its opinion on Wikimedia foundation v. NSA/CSS. The Court vacated and remanded the NSA’s previously successful motion to dismiss Wikimedia’s Fourth and First Amendment claims against the NSA’s Upstream surveillance program, while a 2-1 majority upheld the dismissal of the eight other organizations joined as co-plaintiffs. The Court held that Wikimedia’s complaint contained sufficient factual allegations to determine Article III standing and that the District Court misapplied Clapper v. Amnesty International USA’s analysis of [...] Read more
On May 11, 2017, President Trump signed a long-awaited executive order on cybersecurity (the “Order”). The Order directs executive agencies to complete a risk management report based on the NIST Cybersecurity Framework (the “Framework”) and also requires the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and other agencies to undertake activities in support of effective cybersecurity risk management for operators of critical infrastructure. More generally, the Order directs several agencies to submit reports to the President on a varied set of cybersecurity-related topics. These measures demonstrate [...] Read more
On Friday, May 12, companies in countries across the globe witnessed an unprecedented malware outbreak as ransomware labeled “WannaCry” and “Wanna Decryptor” infected a large range of critical systems. The malware exploits a vulnerability in older versions of Microsoft’s Windows, locks the systems it infects, and threatens to delete files unless a bitcoin ransom is paid.
What happened?
An attacker or group of attackers unleashed a wave of ransomware infections beginning on Friday, May 12. More so than previous attacks, this outbreak resulted in substantial disruption to regular [...] Read more
On May 17, 2016, the European Council formally adopted its position at first reading of the Network and Information Security Directive (“NIS Directive”). The objective of the NIS Directive is to increase cooperation between EU Member States on issues of network and information security. Companies subject to the NIS Directive are required to adopt “appropriate and proportionate technical and organisational measures.” Specifically, the NIS Directive sets forth new cybersecurity obligations for providers of essential services (including entities within the energy, transport, banking, health, [...] Read more
