Litigation and legal developments concerning data breaches.
“They did WHAT??” Ransomware gangs will often test ways to pressure victims to pay. But today, threat actors associated with the AlphV (BlackCat) group tested a new approach that is raising eyebrows in the cybersecurity community. When a victim, MeridianLink, didn’t pay them quickly and didn’t even start to negotiate any payment with them, AlphV […]
New York State continues to strengthen cybersecurity regulations for financial institutions. New amendments to the Cybersecurity Regulation enacted in 2017 strengthen the regulation and add new security obligations. As Hunton Andrews Kurth summarizes it, “The new amendments strengthen the initial framework and require NYDFS-regulated entities to adhere to a number of additional prescriptive data security […]
Bloomberg reports: New York regulators assigned heightened cybersecurity requirements to banks, insurers, and financial services providers based in the state with the release of finalized rule amendments Wednesday. Covered entities will have to use multifactor authentication, expand cybersecurity governance duties, and conduct consistent threat testing under the regulation updated by the New York Department of Financial Services. […]
Today, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced a settlement under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) with Doctors’ Management Services, a Massachusetts medical management company that provides a variety of services, including medical billing and payor credentialing. The HIPAA Privacy, Security, and Breach Notification […]
From HHS OCR: In recognition of National Cybersecurity Awareness Month, OCR has produced a new video this October for organizations covered under the HIPAA Rules on how the HIPAA Security Rule can help regulated entities defend against cyber-attacks. The video is available in English and Spanish. This presentation is intended to educate the health care […]
GovTech reports: Colorado House Republican leaders on Monday called for an investigation into why Colorado’s higher education agency allegedly failed to timely report a massive data breach this summer. In a two-page letter hand-delivered to Gov. Jared Polis and Attorney General Phil Weiser, five state representatives also urged an inquiry into why thousands potentially affected […]
Eric Geller reports: The Biden administration and dozens of foreign allies will pledge this week never to pay ransoms to hackers who lock up their national governments’ computer systems, hoping to discourage financially motivated cyber criminals from seeing those systems as attractive ransomware targets. The joint promise will occur as part of the third annual […]
October 2023 marks the 20th anniversary of the effective date of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Safeguards Rule. Its purpose then – and its purpose now – is to protect consumers by requiring entities covered by the Rule to “develop, implement, and maintain reasonable administrative, technical, and physical safeguards to protect the security, confidentiality, and integrity of customer […]
Hunton Andrews Kurth writes: On October 8, 2023 and October 10, 2023, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed A.B. 947, A.B. 1194, S.B. 362 and S.B. 244 into law. A.B. 947 amends the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018’s (“CCPA”) definition of “sensitive personal information” to include personal information that reveals a consumer’s “citizenship or immigration status,” while A.B. 1194 amends the […]
International Counter Ransomware Initiative 2023 Joint Statement
Released by the White House, November 2, 2023 The 50 members of the International Counter Ransomware Initiative (CRI)—Albania, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, the Czech Republic, the Dominican Republic, Egypt, Estonia, the European Union, France, Germany, Greece, India, INTERPOL, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Lithuania, Mexico, the Netherlands, New […]