Yesterday, October 1, 2020, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued its “Advisory on Potential Sanctions Risks for Facilitating Ransomware Payments.” The advisory begins with the observation that “ransomware attacks have become more focused, sophisticated, costly, and numerous,” citing certain FBI statistics, before making clear what was already well […]
Advisories
California Mandates COVID Exposure and Outbreak Reporting to Employees, Government Agencies
On Thursday, September 17, 2020, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 685 (“AB685”) into law. AB685 amends a number of portions of California’s Labor Code to address the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to provisions that regulate reopening activities at California worksites, AB685 introduces two new COVID-related notification obligations for California employers: (1) a requirement […]
Final CCPA Regulations Approved, Effective Immediately
On Friday, August 14, 2020, the California Office of Administrative Law (OAL) approved the California Office of the Attorney General’s (OAG) Final CCPA Regulations (the “Regulations”) and filed them with California Secretary of State. The Regulations became effective immediately. The OAL-approved Regulations contain several modifications from prior versions. While many of the changes are purely […]
Geopolitical Implications of the European Court’s Schrems II Decision
On July 16, 2020, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) invalidated the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield, a principal legal method for the transfer of personal data from the EU to the United States. The CJEU ruling further cast doubt on the standard contractual clauses, the other means of effecting such international transfers. In […]
UK National Cyber Security Centre Advisory: Russian Attackers, APT29, Targets Companies Involved in COVID-19 Vaccine Development
Yesterday, the UK National Cyber Security Centre and Canada’s Communications Security Establishment released an advisory linking APT29 (also known as, ‘the Dukes’ or ‘Cozy Bear’) to attacks against COVID-19 vaccine development in Canada, the US and the UK. The Advisory stated that APT29 is “almost certainly part of the Russian intelligence services.” APT29/Cozy Bear was […]