Category Archives: Data Breach Response

Business Leaders Rank Cyber Risk #2 on List of Main Concerns

Posted on May 21, 2015 by | Comments Off on Business Leaders Rank Cyber Risk #2 on List of Main Concerns

Posted By Henry M. Sneath, Chair of the Cybersecurity and Data Breach Prevention and Response Team at Pittsburgh, Pa. law firm Picadio Sneath Miller & Norton, P.C.  hsneath@psmn.com or 412-288-4013

Travelers Business Risk ImageTravelers Indemnity and Insurance released its annual Business Risk Index, which is a survey of the concerns of business leaders and decision makers. Not surprisingly, for 2015, Cyber Risk moved up to the number 2 concern on that list, right behind rising healthcare costs. In some industry sectors it is the number 1 concern. The Banking and Financial Services, Professional Services, and Technology sectors each ranked cyber risks as the main driver of sleepless nights.  The chart on page 3 of the survey is very instructional as to the different concerns between small, medium and large businesses. Small businesses have less concern about data breach than larger businesses, but perhaps small businesses are overlooking their vulnerability and attractiveness as targets. If they care less, they will likely protect less, and become easy targets for hackers. It should be a huge concern for all businesses in all industries as no one appears immune. If you data store or deal in Personal Identifiable Information (PII) or Personal Health Information (PHI) as part of your business, then you are a valuable target. If you have financial or credit information, or trade secrets to protect, then perhaps your competitors, foreign governments and political hackers want to look inside your data. Many insurers are now offering Cyber Risk Insurance to provide defense and indemnity against these risks. Every business should have a data breach prevention and response team of employees and outside consultants and lawyers to audit the company’s vulnerability and to set the plan for a response when a breach occurs.  See the complete Travelers Business Risk Index at: https://www.travelers.com/prepare-prevent/risk-index/business/index.aspx

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Posted in Business Risk, Cybersecurity, Data Breach Prevention, Data Breach Response, Data Security, Technology, Trade Secret

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Target Agrees to Settle Class Claims Over 2013 Data Breach for $10M

Posted on March 20, 2015 by | Comments Off on Target Agrees to Settle Class Claims Over 2013 Data Breach for $10M

Posted By Henry M. Sneath, Chair of the Cybersecurity and Data Breach Prevention and Response Team at Pittsburgh, Pa. law firm Picadio Sneath Miller & Norton, P.C.  hsneath@psmn.com or 412-288-4013

Data Breach broken_security_lock photo Target Corp. agrees to settle the 2013 data breach class claims prior to argument on class certification. Lead plaintiff’s counsel admitted the uphill battle he faced to obtain class certification due primarily to the difficulty in these consumer data breach cases of proving commonality of claims. This settlement, which still needs court approval for its proposed $10M payout, will not settle claims by commercial entities, but only individual consumer claims. Here is a good article with more detail from the National Law Journal. We will continue to follow this settlement and the handling of the commercial claims as this blog increases our focus on Cybersecurity and Data Breach Prevention and Response issues.

See this link to the NLJ for more info:  http://tinyurl.com/kxwjrb9

 

 

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Posted in Cybersecurity, Data Breach Response, Technology

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Cybersecurity (CISA) Bill Moves out of Congressional Committee

Posted on March 13, 2015 by | Comments Off on Cybersecurity (CISA) Bill Moves out of Congressional Committee

j0402514Posted By Henry M. Sneath, Chair of the Cybersecurity and Data Breach Response team at Pittsburgh, Pa. law firm Picadio Sneath Miller & Norton, P.C.  hsneath@psmn.com or 412-288-4013

Privacy concerns continue to dog the CISA (formerly CISPA) bill, but it easily passed out of the  Senate Intelligence Committee yesterday.  Pundits claim that the bill pits “big government – NSA, Homeland Security et al allegedly aided by Big Tech Companies” against privacy advocates who want less regulation of data and the internet. I’m not sure if it lines up that neatly however. See this short article with a summary of the committee process from Wired.Com.

Here is an advocacy website piece which supports defeat of he bill.

We will continue to monitor the path of the bill to see if it makes it to the Senate Floor for a vote. For the complete text of the bill, view it at this link.

Sneath Headshot

Henry M. Sneath on Google+ or see his PSMN ® bio.

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Posted in Cybersecurity, Data Breach Response, Legislation, Technology, Trade Secret

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