Last week, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) voted 3-2 on a series of rules relating to cybersecurity disclosures, including a new requirement for public companies to publicly disclose “significant impacts” of cyber-attacks within four days. Public companies would be well-served to review the new requirements immediately to form a plan of action to address the newly approved rules.
Continue Reading SEC Approves Transformative Cybersecurity Disclosure Requirements
Here in the United States, companies face a patchwork of legal obligations that address information security and data privacy. For example, federal laws target certain market segments (such as health care, financial services, and education), state laws target certain types of information (such as personal financial or biometric information), and both state and federal laws target unfair or unreasonable business practices. This patchwork—and the lack of comprehensive nationwide privacy and security standards—can make compliance challenging and frustrating. Security professionals and legal counsel must work hard to keep up.
The Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) will soon add to the patchwork. The SEC’s new rules promise to add significant compliance obligations for public companies, and non-public companies will also want to take note.
Continue Reading The SEC’S Proposed Cybersecurity Rules: Is Your Company Ready?
On December 13, 2022, the European Commission published a draft adequacy decision for the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework (“EU-U.S. DPF or DPF”) signaling the potential return of the framework allowing the flow of personal data between the EU and the United States. Although this is a draft decision, if approved, it will ease trans-Atlantic data flow and ease the restrictions that were placed after the 2020 Schrems II decision invalidated the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield framework for cross-border transfers. This draft adequacy decision ultimately concluded that the DPF provides an adequate level of protection of personal data.
As you consider the end of the year and beginning of a new year, we in Taft’s Privacy and Data Security Practice thought to provide you with a simple list of data protection resolutions you might consider, both professionally and personally.
1. Get strong! Now is a good time to make a change in passwords for your accounts, and specifically make them strong passwords (i.e. ten characters or more, including an upper and lower case letter, number, and
Continue Reading 2023 Privacy and Data Security Resolutions
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (the “OCC”), Treasury; the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (the “Fed Board”); and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (the “FDIC” and, collectively with the OCC and the Fed Board, the “Agencies”) issued a final rule detailing notification requirements for a “computer-security incident” that rises to the level of a “notification incident.” The new rule went into effect on April 1, 2022, with a compliance date of May 1, 2022. Given the recent history of computer-security incidents and their increase in severity in recent years in the banking industry, the Agencies believed that implementing a new breach notification rule was important to allow the Agencies to assess and respond to cyberattacks.
Continue Reading Final Rule Regarding Security Incident Notification Requirements: Time to Review Your Existing Procedures and Contracts
You might think your run-of-the-mill privacy and cybersecurity training is sufficient. You might think that by “checking the box” on generic training you have fulfilled your duty and obligation to mitigate data privacy and cybersecurity attacks. You might think that general malware protection adequately secures your company’s data and you can move on with your everyday business efforts without concern.
By now, we are used to seeing notifications on our phones asking whether we would like certain applications to track our activity across other companies’ apps and websites. Typically, these tracking tools are used to examine and assess advertising efficiency. Although beneficial marketing tools, companies must be mindful of how tracking tools are used on their platform to avoid infringing on individuals’ data privacy rights.
Recently, Canadian regulators found that Tim Hortons, a coffee and bake shop chain, violated Canada’s federal privacy laws, including Canada’s Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), by tracking customers’ (who downloaded its app) movement every few minutes of every day. Following an app update in May 2019, the company allegedly tracked users not only when using the app, but whenever individuals’ devices were turned on –collecting massive amounts of location data without users’ knowledge.
You may have heard of a security vulnerability from December 2021 called Log4j that allows attackers to remotely gain control of a vulnerable device. You may also think this is old news and no longer an issue. Wrong. According to an April 26, 2022 report from researchers at the cybersecurity company Rezilion, there are currently over 90,000 vulnerable internet-facing applications and more than 68,000 servers that are still publicly exposed. That’s right – four months after the vulnerability was disclosed, a majority of affected open-source components remain unpatched and companies continue to use vulnerable versions of this tool. So, what is it anyways and do you need to take any action to mitigate the risk?
Continue Reading Apache Log4j Security Vulnerability Is STILL a Problem – What is it, Who Does it Impact, and Should I do Anything About It?
In March, 2022, President Joe Biden signed the Strengthening American Cybersecurity Act (the “Act”) into law. While the Act consists of various regulations, the security incident reporting requirements for entities in critical infrastructure sectors are getting the most attention. Although the reporting requirements are focused mainly on entities in critical infrastructure, there is potential that entities in various industries could be subject to these requirements.
Continue Reading Strengthening American Cybersecurity Act of 2022
Considering the potential number of companies impacted by each of the following, we in Taft’s Privacy and Data Security Practice wanted to share this urgent post with more information to ensure your company is considering the related risks presented by these vulnerabilities in commonly used website tools and platforms.
Continue Reading Information Security Alert: Two Security Vulnerabilities with Widespread Reach