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Jon Washburn manages the firm’s information governance, compliance, and ISO 27001-certified information security programs and is a cybersecurity and technology resource for multiple Stoel Rives practice teams.

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Scammers are always seeking new ways to target victims for Business Email Compromise (BEC) scams, where they leverage email to try to convince you to give them credentials, send them confidential information like W2s, send them money by changing things like direct deposit instructions, or give any other data that can help them profit from

For Cybersecurity and Privacy, “What Are the Industry Standards? Are We Meeting Them?”

These are questions the FTC Chairman, Joseph Simons, strongly suggested a CEO must ask before a data breach occurs to avoid the prospect of personal liability. These questions and statements by other commissioners emphasizing the FTC’s role – to bring about a “culture of change” that better protects consumers – were part of separate meetings with each of the five FTC commissioners last month. On the heels of these meetings, Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) proposed federal legislation that would give the FTC new powers and incarceration for executives who fail to meet industry standards.

With the FTC already requiring at least one CEO to verify that a company is meeting industry standards for privacy, the question of what industry standards apply is more important than ever. Since 2010 the FTC has resolved about 50 cases involving alleged cybersecurity incidents and privacy violations (mostly the latter). In 12 of these the FTC named directors and officers and their organizations. In four of these the FTC negotiated settlements requiring organizations to establish and implement written cybersecurity and privacy programs. As noted previously, the FTC has been on a tear”[1] and recently mandated that Equifax implement a comprehensive cybersecurity program that included, “at a minimum,” 26 requirements.

Which brings us back to Chairman Simons’ questions and what constitutes “industry standards.” Some laws and commonly used contract terms define industry standards as “the usual and customary practices in the delivery of products or services within a particular business sector.”[2] Industry standards can also refer to a standard adopted by a Standards Setting Organization. Establishing such standards takes time as they must be tested to ensure broad application. Enter NIST – the National Institute of Standards and Technologies.[3]

In February 2013, an executive order was issued requiring government and private sector organizations to collaborate on how “to maintain a cyber environment that encourages efficiency, innovation, and economic prosperity while promoting safety, security, business confidentiality, privacy, and civil liberties.”[4] A year later the NIST Cybersecurity Framework (“CSF”) was published and last year on April 16 it was updated. The Organization of American States and Amazon Web Services recently described it as:

[U]ndoubtedly a tool for cybersecurity risk management, which enables technological innovation while adjusting to all types of organizations (regardless of category or size) … [and is] a simple-approach to strategy to cybersecurity governance, to make it possible to easily transfer technical notions to the business objectives and needs.[5]

The CSF can be found here: https://www.nist.gov/cyberframework.Continue Reading Achieving Industry Standards

The Internet Society’s Online Trust Alliance (OTA) released a report this week that measured 1200 U.S.-based organizations’ readiness for three major global privacy regulations: the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Union,  the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) in the United States that goes into effect January 1, 2020, and the Personal Information

What the FTC Wants, the FTC (Mostly) Gets

In recent weeks the Federal Trade Commission has been on a tear. As one example, on July 22 it announced a $700 million settlement with Equifax for “the 2017 data breach that jeopardized the personal data of a staggering 147 million people.” But it is a decision earlier this year that is perhaps more ominous, at least regarding personal liability for directors and officers (“D&Os”).

On February 27, 2019, after announcing a $5.7 million settlement with TikTok for various privacy violations relating to its lip-syncing app, two of the five FTC commissioners, Rebecca Kelly Slaughter and Rohit Chopra, issued this joint statement:

When any company appears to have made a business decision to violate or disregard the law, the Commission should identify and investigate those individuals who made or ratified that decision and evaluate whether to charge them. As we continue to pursue violations of law, we should prioritize uncovering the role of corporate officers and directors and hold accountable everyone who broke the law.

This approach appears to have some traction with the current FTC Chairman, Joe Simons, and the Bureau of Consumer Protection Director, Andrew Smith, who both discussed Slaughter and Chopra’s statement at the 2019 International Association of Privacy Professionals Global Privacy Summit. Smith described naming D&Os as a “way to make companies take notice that [the FTC] is serious about compliance.”
Continue Reading Recent FTC Enforcement Actions

Until recently, hackers have had limited success stealing Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) PIN and token information.  Unfortunately, a tool has been released that will now make it much easier for practically any bad actor to bypass many implementations of 2FA:

https://www.zdnet.com/article/new-tool-automates-phishing-attacks-that-bypass-2fa/

This does not mean we should stop using Two-Factor Authentication (2FA). We should still use

This past Wednesday, the Senate Commerce Committee held another hearing on consumer data privacy, this time giving voice to prominent privacy advocates. Previous testimony in September from leading technology businesses focused on concerns with the complexity of having to comply with a patchwork of different state privacy regulations, broad definitions of “personal information” in the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), and a desire to see Federal legislation enacted that would preempt state laws and create a single, unified US privacy law.

While a national privacy law would simplify compliance, in Wednesday’s hearing Nuala O’Connor, the President and CEO of the Center for Democracy & Technology, cautioned the committee that the “price of preemption would be very, very high”, and Laura Moy, Executive Director and Adjunct Professor of Law at the  Georgetown Law Center on Privacy & Technology, laid out in her written testimony six strong recommendations that we should expect to see in any proposed national standard:
Continue Reading The Senate Commerce Committee held a second hearing on consumer data privacy, this time with privacy advocates

The U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) announced recently that it has launched a collaborative project to develop a voluntary privacy framework to help organizations manage risk. According to NIST Director Walter G. Copan, “The development of a privacy framework through an open process of stakeholder engagement is intended to

A presentation at Black Hat recently revealed that the creators of the “SamSam” ransomware have netted over $6M to date, attacking mostly medium-to-large public and private sector organizations. And they’re showing no signs of slowing down.

In the most recent SamSam attacks, the attackers concentrated their efforts on brute-force hacking of weak passwords on devices

Health care providers and suppliers should be wary of the “Orangeworm” threat, an implementation of malware out in the wild that’s gathering information off of compromised medical equipment, especially old systems where file shares and Windows XP are still in use:

https://www.zdnet.com/article/mysterious-cyber-worm-targets-medical-systems-found-on-x-ray-machines-and-mri-scanners/

While this group seems to be limiting their actions to reconnaissance and compromising