Photo of Edward McNicholas

On October 29, 2024, the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) published its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NPRM”) to implement President Biden’s Executive Order 14117, “Preventing Access to Americans’ Bulk Sensitive Personal Data and United States Government-Related Data by Countries of Concern.” This follows the DOJ’s publication of its Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking earlier this year. 

On October 22, 2024, the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) filed settled enforcement orders involving four current and former public companies – Unisys Corp., Avaya Holdings Corp., Check Point Software Ltd, and Mimecast Limited. The settlements concern the issuers’ disclosures relating to cybersecurity risks and intrusions following the December 2020 SUNBURST cybersecurity incident, which affected

On March 13, 2024, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) announced that it had opened an investigation into the monumental cyberattack on Change Healthcare (“Change”), a unit of UnitedHealth Group (“UHG”). The attack is one of the largest assaults against the U.S. health care system, with far-reaching

On April 24, President Biden signed a sweeping foreign aid bill into law, which included a critical provision covering privacy and data transfers known as the Protecting Americans’ Data from Foreign Adversaries Act (“PADFA”). This Act is separate from the TikTok divestment portion of the legislation, which has received far greater attention in the press. 

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has issued its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) to establish the first cross-sectoral federal cybersecurity incident and ransomware payment reporting system.

As noted in an alert in March 2022, President Biden signed the Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act of 2022 (CIRCIA) into law just over two

On February 28, 2024, President Biden announced an Executive Order directing the Department of Justice to promulgate regulations that restrict or prohibit transactions involving certain bulk sensitive personal data or United States Government-related data and countries of concern or covered persons. The DOJ’s initially identified countries are China (including Hong Kong and Macau), Russia, Iran

On July 26, 2023, the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) voted 3–2 to adopt rules requiring public companies to disclose material cybersecurity incidents as well as information regarding their cybersecurity risk management, strategy, and governance (the “Cybersecurity Disclosure Rules” or “Final Rules”).1 The Final Rules require disclosure of “material cybersecurity incidents”. The disclosure must be made within four business days from the date on which a cybersecurity incident is determined to be “material” as opposed to four business days from the date on which the occurrence of an incident is discovered; although, that distinction may be difficult to implement in practice. Covered entities, which include all issuers that file annual reports on Form 10-K or Form 20-F, should promptly review their cybersecurity protocols and procedures to address further required disclosure items.2Continue Reading SEC Adopts Final Rules on Public Company Cybersecurity Disclosures

Since 2000, technological advances have transformed how customers interact with financial institutions and how such firms store, process and protect personal information. The proliferation of large-scale hacks and data breaches throughout this time simultaneously demonstrated the difficulty of data protection given the ever-evolving nature of cybercrime. Despite these developments, the SEC has failed to update

On March 15, 2023, the SEC issued a release (the “Release”) containing proposed amendments to Regulation S-P (the “Proposals”). These Proposals were published in the Federal Register today, March 21. If adopted, the Proposals would require broker-dealers, registered investment companies (with business development companies, “registered funds”) and investment advisers to adopt written policies and

Blackbeard may not be the first name that comes to mind when considering cybercrime, but prior international efforts to stop stateless rogue actors can point us toward the proper focus for cybersecurity—governments taking responsibility to solve a classic collective action problem by direct action, supporting existing industry defense measures, and leading multilateral cooperation efforts. This