Privacy & Cybersecurity

After a quiet winter there has been significant activity in state legislatures to enact, strengthen or clarify their data breach notification statutes. The latest happenings are summarized below and we have updated our “Mintz Matrix” to reflect these new and pending laws. 

While your business may indeed be a "victim" when hit by a phishing attack, your enterprise can also be responsible for violations of law associated with the incident. Earlier this week, the HHS Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) announced a $400,000 settlement with Metro Community Provider Network (“MCPN”) related to a 2012 HIPAA breach caused by a phishing scam.

At last week's Health Care Compliance Association's annual “Compliance Institute," Iliana Peters, HHS Office for Civil Rights’ Senior Advisor for HIPAA Compliance and Enforcement, provided a thorough update of HIPAA enforcement trends as well as a road map to OCR’s current and future endeavors.

We are anxiously waiting to learn the fate of the data breach notification statute recently passed by state lawmakers in New Mexico. The bill remains on the desk of the governor who has until the end of the week to sign the legislation into law.

The FBI has issued new guidance specifically applicable to medical and dental facilities regarding the cybersecurity risk of File Transfer Protocol (“FTP”) servers operating in “anonymous” mode. FTPs are routinely used to transfer information between network hosts.

Wearable technology continues to do a full-court press on the marketplace and in the process, the step counters of the world and health apps tied to devices capable of tracking real-time biostatistics, are revolutionizing the way companies think about wellness.

Since September, the Mintz Privacy Webinar Series has focused on the upcoming EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to help businesses understand the reach and scope of the GDPR and prepare for the potentially game-changing privacy regulation.

“Don’t make promises that you don’t intend to keep” is an admonishment received by every child and delivered by every parent. This pithy maxim is equally applicable to consent orders entered into with regulatory authorities. Indeed, Upromise’s failure to abide by it is costing the company $500,000 in the form of a civil penalty from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

We are well into March Madness … and Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
You may have already had your bracket busted by now…..but you should have Mintz Levin’s Third Annual Employment Law Summit on your schedule and the panel on Cybersecurity and Employee Data Breaches may help you avoid a security incident/personal data buster.

Recently, a Google researcher discovered a serious flaw with the content delivery network (CDN) provided by CloudFlare. This vulnerability has now become known as Cloudbleed, in a nod to the earlier Heartbleed SSL vulnerability. 

Counsel for a class of card-issuing banks filed a settlement agreement on March 8 proposing a class settlement to resolve claims arising from the 2014 theft of payment card data from Home Depot point-of-sale terminals.

The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (the “GDPR”) goes into effect in a little over fourteen months and from a quick glance at our bullet points analysis you can see there is a lot to consider. 

Last week, Snap Inc. (“Snap” or the “Company”) – the parent company of the wildly popular app Snapchat (“Snapchat” or the “App”) – became a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange in the biggest tech IPO since Alibaba in 2014. 

In an effort to combat the growing prevalence of large-scale corporate cyberattacks, the New York Department of Financial Services (“NYDFS”) is rolling out a revamped cybersecurity regulation for financial services companies to take effect TODAY (March 1, 2017).

Five Things You (and Your M&A Diligence Team) Should Know
Recently it was announced that Verizon would pay $350 million less than it had been prepared to pay previously for Yahoo as a result of data breaches that affected over 1.5 billion users, pending Yahoo shareholder approval. Verizon Chief Executive Lowell McAdam led the negotiations for the price reduction.

Last week, the HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR) disclosed a $5.5 million settlement with Memorial Healthcare Systems (MHS) for HIPAA violations affecting the protected health information (PHI) of 115,143 individuals.

As our readers know we maintain a summary of U.S. state data breach notification laws, which we refer to as the “Mintz Matrix.”

Since September, the Mintz Levin Privacy Webinar Series has focused on the upcoming EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to help businesses understand the reach and scope of the GDPR and prepare for the potentially game-changing privacy regulation.

What does your TV-watching history say about you? According to a recent lawsuit against VIZIO, Inc., it might be more than you think! One of the world’s largest sellers of “smart” televisions has recently paid a $2.2 million settlement following charges by the Federal Trade Commission and the Office of the New Jersey Attorney General that it was unlawfully tracking and selling 11 million consumers’ viewing data.

When hackers steal consumer data, injury to consumers is not a foregone conclusion. This is particularly so where credit and debit card numbers are stolen. Banks, not consumers, bear the cost of fraudulent charges.