On November 7, 2014, the Australian Department of Immigration and Border Proteciton gave notice of a data breach that morning affecting the leaders of the G20. As described:
The personal information which has been breached is the name, date of birth, title, position nationality, passport number, visa grant number and visa subclass held relating
Cyber breaches resulting in the release of personal identifiable information (PII) are increasingly common and now we are starting to see class action lawsuits filed as a result. In what will likely be the beginning of a wave of lawsuits filed as a result of cyber breaches, Schnucks Markets, operator of 100 supermarkets across the Midwest, recently removed a class action lawsuit filed against it to federal court stemming from a data breach that occurred in March in which 2.4 million credit card numbers were stolen.
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A data breach resulting in the theft and use of customer credit card numbers results in significant expenses and penalties for the victim company. Many companies still do not have specific cyber liability coverage and thus can be on the hook for all expenses related to such a breach. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals
While companies are often focused on outsider risks such as breach of their systems through a stolen laptop or hacking, often the biggest risk is from insiders themselves. Such problems of access management with existing employees, independent contractors and other persons are as much a threat to proprietary information as threats from outside sources.
In
Today the FTC announced a $800,000 settlement with Path, a social media network to settle allegations that it violated its own privacy policy and also illegally collected information on children under 13 in violation ofCOPPA(Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act).
According to the complaint Path represented that personal information from the user’s mobile
While fraud protection has become a common expectation from consumers in regards to their bank accounts and credit accounts, treatment of commercial clients including small businesses in the face of a cyber attack or fraud is more opaque.
Smaller companies are more vulnerable to cyber threats than their larger counterparts due to the lack of
Major databreaches make the news. TJ Maxx, Barnes & Noble, and Sony all had high profile breaches. In such large scale breaches, there is a flaw that is easily exploited on a grand scale. The individual hack is rarely reported and easily overlooked.
This past summer, a writer for Wired.com, found his online life turned
Mobile application (“app”) developers, both the ones who write the code and the ones whose services or goods are being sold, may need to comply with a patchwork of state laws. A Connecticut or Massachusetts company has a nationwide reach when it offers an app for download in the Apple App Store, Google Play, or
A data breach occurs and personal information about your customers is compromised. It can happen to any size business, big or small, and the costs to your business can be significant. Every company stores private information including credit card numbers and social security numbers that are vulnerable to a deliberate cyber incident such as unauthorized
As the best informed Massachusetts technology lawyers already know, the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) and Google have announced a $22.5 million dollar settlement (the largest civil penalty ever) to address claims of unfair and deceptive trade practices in violating its privacy statement for Google Buzz – a social networking application for Gmail users. Click Here for