The sales of cyber-insurance policies has spiked sharply this year, mainly due to the increased attention and scrutiny of massive data breaches from Target and Neiman Marcus over the last holiday season. Also, in what was once an uncommon occurrence, banks are now suing retailers who have been victimized by hackers accessing mission-critical data. These […]
In a report published today in The Wall Street Journal, the Obama White House was presented with the final four recommendations for restructuring the National Security Agency’s (“NSA”) controversial bulk collection of data. As one would imagine, none of the four options available are perfect, but they include: (1) Abolishment of the entire program itself; (2) have […]
In response to the thousands of mobile applications hitting the market that often rely on consumer data (i.e. contact information, location, photos, etc.), the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) released a suggested list of security guidelines for mobile app developers to follow when designing a program. While a no one-size-fits-all checklist can exist, the FTC views […]
Appellate court judge, Hon. Richard Leon, ruled today that the mass collection of American’s telephone data is “Orewellian” and most likely unconstitutional. What exactly is a “National Security Letter” (or “NSL” for short)? Actually, NSL’s have been around for quite some time, but the USA PATRIOT Act greatly expanded its functionality in the wake of […]
To better understand issues that are not always easily answerable, sometimes we should be forced to examine the alternative opposing viewpoint no matter how benign or absurd. While it would seem hard to defend the NSA’s practice of mass collecting call detail records of non-suspect Americans as not violating the 4th Amendment rights under the […]
A bipartisan group of House and Senate members introduced the USA FREEDOM Act last month in an attempt to restore Americans’ privacy rights by ending the bulk collection of phone records and requiring greater oversight, transparency, and accountability with respect to domestic surveillance programs. The Sensenbrenner-Rokita NSA Reform Bill (another name for the USA FREEDOM Act) […]
This past Summer the Ponemon Institute and Experian Data Breach Resolution organization released a report stating that most businesses now rank cyber-security risks higher than natural disasters and other major business risks. Despite the paradigm shift of this reality in the boardroom, few companies are still willing to purchase cyber-insurance as part of their overall […]
A bill passed earlier this Summer by the State of California Senate could potentially subject individuals, within that State, to criminal prosecution for the unauthorized online posting of “explicit” user-generated photos and videos (the practice otherwise known as “revenge porn”). If passed and signed into law, the bill could potentially pit the rights of victims against people favoring free […]
Thank god for the world of make-believe. We know pigs cannot talk or drive cars, but in a poorly imagined metaphor, GEICO, Inc., released a commercial a few weeks back whereby a pig (meant to be us “insureds,” as they are called in the industry) was pulled over for an apparent traffic violation. The pig […]
For years, cyber-security experts, the FBI, and U.S. Secret Service have lamented that technology alone will not prevent the unauthorized release of mission-critical data. Public awareness and training is a critical component of this process, and yet, we keep losing the cyber-security battle. PriceWaterhouseCoopers and CSO Magazine recently released a collaborative report entitled – 2013 […]