New York Attorney General Letitia James recently announced two agreements related to data breaches with entities that operate in the education industry. In both instances the entities paid the ransom and received evidence of deletion of the stolen data. Most recently, on October 5, 2023 the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) announced a $49.5 […]
Cybersecurity
Penn State University Hit With False Claims Act Suit for Alleged Cyber Security Deficiencies
On September 1, 2023, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania unsealed a qui tam False Claims Act (“FCA”) lawsuit (originally filed on October 5, 2022) alleging Penn State University failed to provide “adequate security” for Covered Defense Information, as contractually required by Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (“DFARS”) 252.204-7012. DFARS requires […]
California Proposes Annual Audits to Assess Sufficiency and Compliance of Company Cybersecurity
In late August 2023, the California Privacy Protection Agency (“CPPA” or “Agency”) released a discussion draft of proposed regulations under California’s data privacy law, the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”). Importantly, the proposed regulations set forth more detailed obligations for company cybersecurity programs, including routinely assessing and filing audits with the CPPA. Though these draft […]
NIST Cybersecurity Framework 2.0 Released for Public Comment
On August 8, 2023, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) released the initial draft of its Cybersecurity Framework 2.0 and draft Implementation Examples for public comment. This marks the first significant update to the NIST Cybersecurity Framework (“Framework”) since its initial release in 2014, which is intended to address current and future cybersecurity […]
Chinese Hackers Exploit Gap in Cloud Environment Used by U.S. Government
According to recent reports issued by Microsoft and U.S. government agencies, hackers recently exploited a gap in Microsoft’s cloud environment, enabling the malicious actors to access the email accounts of employees at the United States Commerce and State Departments. Including the U.S. government, around 10 organizations were victimized in the U.S. and about 25 were […]