R. Locke Beatty of McGuireWoods writes: Frequently, a class action complaint will set forth an elaborate theory of why the defendant’s actions were negligent or wrongful, but fall short when trying to identify how that conduct has harmed the class members. This kind of complaint invites a motion to dismiss on the grounds that the…
Category: Commentaries and Analyses
The Injuries Reilly Ignored: Consumer Data Breaches and Injury-in-Fact
Law student Shannon Grammel writes: The U.S. Supreme Court denied review in 2012 to thousands of individuals whose data was breached who were alleging increased harm of identity theft and seeking to reverse the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit’s decision to deny them standing in Reilly v. Ceridian Corp.1 In so doing, the Supreme…
SS7 hack explained: what can you do about it?
An episode on CBS’s 60 Minutes Sunday evening probably alarmed a number of people as it demonstrated how hackers could remotely take over your cell phone and watch you through your camera without anything indicating to you that your camera was in operation, etc. Samuel Gibbs reports: Hackers can read text messages, listen to phone…
Schools put on high alert for JBoss ransomware exploit
Katherine Noyes reports: More than 2,000 machines at schools and other organizations have been infected with a backdoor in unpatched versions of JBoss that could be used at any moment to install ransomware such as Samsam. That’s according to Cisco’s Talos threat-intelligence organization, which on Friday announced that roughly 3.2 million machines worldwide are at risk. Many of those…
Feds made 5,670 privacy breaches last year; CRA worst offender
CTV reports: New documents show that the private information of tens of thousands of people was mishandled by the federal government last year, including hundreds of taxpayer files inappropriately accessed by employees of the Canada Revenue Agency, which was the worst offender. Read the detailed findings on CTV. I can’t help it. I’m reading the above…
If a Data Breach Occurs and Nobody Accesses Customer Data, Does it Constitute “Publication”?
As reported on the Hunton Insurance Recovery Blog, data breach claims involving customer data can present an ever-increasing risk for companies across all industries. A recent case illustrates efforts to recover the costs associated with such claims. A panel of the Fourth Circuit confirmed that general liability policies can afford coverage for cyber-related liabilities, and ruled…