On March 23, 2018, the President signed into law the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2018 (H.R. 1625), an omnibus spending bill that includes the Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data Act (the CLOUD Act)....more
Russians Continue to Attack U.S. Energy and Power Sectors -
Late last week, a joint statement by the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation confirmed that the Russian government has been...more
3/23/2018
/ Cambridge Analytica ,
Cyber Attacks ,
Cybersecurity ,
Data Breach ,
Driverless Cars ,
Drones ,
Energy Sector ,
Exports ,
Facebook ,
Hackers ,
Online Travel Vendors ,
Orbitz ,
Personally Identifiable Information ,
Russia ,
Trump Administration ,
Uber ,
UK Data Protection Act ,
Unmanned Aircraft Systems
On March 16, David Carroll, a New York based American professor sued Cambridge Analytica (CA) in the U.K. courts, after the data analytics firm allegedly failed to respond to his request made pursuant to the U.K. Data...more
Facebook and the English data analytics firm Cambridge Analytica (CA) are facing intense scrutiny in response to numerous reports about the possible misuse of data of 50 million Facebook accounts. The data was originally...more
Patent infringement defendants have been enjoying a good ride for some time now. The Supreme Court, with decisions like Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank International, have for the most part raised the barriers for patentees and...more
Health Care Organizations Saw an 89% Increase in Ransomware in 2017 -
Our experience last year is consistent with the conclusion of a new report issued by Cryptonite in its 2017 Health Care Cyber Research Report—that the...more
1/16/2018
/ Customs and Border Protection ,
Cyber Attacks ,
Cybersecurity ,
Data Breach ,
Drones ,
Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) ,
Hackers ,
Health Care Providers ,
HIPAA Audits ,
Initial Coin Offering (ICOs) ,
Malware ,
Mobile Devices ,
OCR ,
Personally Identifiable Information ,
Privacy Concerns ,
Ransomware ,
Transportation Industry
This week, the world learned of widespread and serious vulnerabilities in most central processing units (CPU). CPUs manage the instructions received from the hardware and software running on a computer. The vulnerabilities,...more
If you own trademark registrations in the United States, you are required to make certain filings with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) to keep your trademark registration(s) alive. In particular, prior to the sixth...more
12/5/2017
/ Abstract Ideas ,
Filing Deadlines ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Legal Fees ,
Patent Infringement ,
Patent Litigation ,
Patent Trolls ,
Patents ,
Trademark Registration ,
Trademarks ,
USPTO
We previously warned readers about the Locky ransomware, which is potent and designed to use phishing emails to lure users to click on links and attachments, including pdfs.
Now, researchers at Cylance have discovered...more
11/20/2017
/ Antitrust Provisions ,
Big Data ,
Colleges ,
Cyber Attacks ,
Cyber Crimes ,
Cyber Threats ,
Cybersecurity ,
Data Breach ,
Drones ,
Educational Institutions ,
Email ,
Hackers ,
Information Technology ,
Malware ,
Personally Identifiable Information ,
Ransomware ,
Universities ,
Unmanned Aircraft Systems
As we approach calendar year end, traditionally the busiest period of the year for mergers and acquisitions, it is worth revisiting whether our existing competition law framework can and does properly assess the market power...more
Security researchers this week have found a new vulnerability that affects Wi-Fi Protected Access II, also known as WPA2, which is the security protocol used by many wireless networks. The vulnerability, Key Reinstallation...more
10/24/2017
/ Amazon Marketplace ,
Biometric Information ,
Biometric Information Privacy Act ,
Cyber Threats ,
Cybersecurity ,
Data Breach ,
Data Collection ,
Drones ,
Electronically Stored Information ,
Email ,
Extraterritoriality Rules ,
Hackers ,
Hyatt ,
Microsoft ,
Mobile Devices ,
Network Security ,
Personal Data ,
Privacy Concerns ,
Public Wireless Networks ,
Risk Management ,
SCOTUS ,
Stored Communications Act ,
US-CERT ,
Vulnerability Assessments ,
Wifi ,
Wireless Technology
In an order issued on October 16, 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari in United States v. Microsoft Corporation, a case with potentially far-reaching implications for the privacy of electronic data maintained by...more
10/20/2017
/ Certiorari ,
Criminal Investigations ,
Drug Trafficking ,
Electronically Stored Information ,
Email ,
Extraterritoriality Rules ,
Internet Service Providers (ISPs) ,
Ireland ,
Microsoft ,
Popular ,
Search Warrant ,
Stored Communications Act ,
Subpoenas
Japan and the European Union announced an agreement in principle on major components of a substantial free trade deal on the eve of the recent G20 summit in Hamburg. This free trade deal rivals NAFTA in scope and impact, as...more
Twitter recently announced updates to its Privacy Policy. The updates are effective on June 18, 2017. By using the social media platform on or after that date, Twitter users will be deemed to have agreed to these updates....more
The GDPR will apply as of May 25, 2018. It provides a single set of very innovative rules directly applicable in the entire European Union (EU), without the need for national implementing measures—which means that any...more
Two Massachusetts accounting firms separately recently notified the Office of the Massachusetts Attorney General and the Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation of data breach incidents at their firms, resulting in...more
Privacy laws in Asia-Pacific countries such as Japan, Australia, New Zealand and Singapore restrict the export of personal information except when the exporter meets certain qualifying conditions. One qualifying condition is...more
As was expected, President Trump signed into law the rescinding of the broadband privacy regulations adopted in 2016 by the Obama administration’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC)....more
Yahoo’s troubles for failing to timely disclose security breaches provides rare insight into quantifying the financial and other costs to a company’s shareholders and leadership when a security breach occurs and is...more
3/13/2017
/ Clawbacks ,
Cyber Attacks ,
Cybersecurity ,
Data Breach ,
Email ,
Hackers ,
Information Technology ,
Personally Identifiable Information ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Telecommunications ,
Verizon ,
Yahoo!
Tobias Boelter, a University of California Berkeley cryptography researcher claims that last year he found a security flaw in WhatsApp’s encrypted smart phone messaging application. The flaw, which relates to the unique...more
2/6/2017
/ Data Breach ,
Data Collection ,
Data Privacy ,
Data Protection ,
Facebook ,
Germany ,
Mobile Apps ,
Mobile Devices ,
Personally Identifiable Information ,
Social Networks ,
WhatsApp
The Massachusetts Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation (OCABR) has published an online list of data breach notifications issued each year to Massachusetts residents since 2007, the inception of the...more
In 2016, new privacy, cybersecurity and/or data security legislation passed or became effective in a number of countries, some adopting data security measures for the first time. Several countries adopted cybersecurity...more
Last July, the United States and the European Union agreed on a new framework to allow for the transfer of Europeans’ personal data to the United States. This new framework, known as Privacy Shield, replaced the Safe Harbor...more
Transfers of personal data from most European countries to the US have been exposed to legal attack since October 2015, when privacy campaigner Max Schrems successfully sued the Irish authorities over data transfers made by...more
Wire fraud crime has long been a problem for financial institutions and banks. However, wire fraud through email is a completely different beast. Originally characterized by law enforcement as an extension of traditional wire...more