On January 3, the U.S. announced the successful assassination of Qasem Soleimani, Iran’s top general. Dire warnings about retaliation immediately appeared in the news, and it wasn’t long before we began to see headlines claiming that Iran had launched cyberattacks on the U.S. But were these really state actors or sophisticated actors, or or were…
Category: Commentaries and Analyses
FTC Summarizes 2019 Changes to Data Security Orders
Caleb Skeath and Danielle Kehl of Covington & Burling write: In a recent blog post, the Federal Trade Commission highlighted three key changes it made in 2019 in its approach to issuing orders in data security enforcement matters. As stated by Andrew Smith, the Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, in the blog post, the…
Washington State Attorney General’s Office 2019 Data Breach Report
For those who may not know, Washington State produces its own data breach report annually. Here’s a snippet from their report: In 2019, the total number of breaches reported to our office increased by nearly 20%, with just over 70% resulting from a malicious cyberattack. Yep, the percentage increase in number of incidents/reports sounds about…
New and improved FTC data security orders: Better guidance for companies, better protection for consumers
I held off on posting this one as so many people need a bit more time to get back into the swing of things after the holidays. Andrew Smith, Director of the FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection, posted this on January 6 on the FTC’s site: When Chairman Simons and I arrived at the FTC,…
MAZE Relaunches “Name and Shame” Website, Continues Dumping Data from Reluctant Victims
Sarah Coble reports: A threat group has once again taken to the internet to publish data stolen from alleged victims who refuse to cooperate with its ransom demands. In December 2019, the MAZE ransomware group published online a portion of the 120 GB of data they claimed to have stolen from Southwire, North America’s most prominent wire…
SG: Public healthcare cluster NHG fined $6,000 for not securing personal data
Hariz Baharudin reports: Public healthcare cluster National Healthcare Group (NHG) has been fined $6,000 for failing to secure personal data – a year after another healthcare cluster, SingHealth, received a record fine after a breach in its database. Five other companies, including Safra and Creative Technology, have also been sanctioned over the past two months by…