After years of vigorous debate and numerous bills aimed at incentivizing cyber threat intelligence sharing having failed to become law, on December 18, 2015, President Obama signed an omnibus spending bill containing the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015 (“CISA”). The statute is located in Title I of Division N of the bill, beginning on […]
Cybersecurity
EU Institutions Reach Agreement on First Pan-European Legislation on Cybersecurity
On December 7, 2015, after more than two years of legislative consideration, the European Parliament and the European Council reached a political agreement concerning the Directive on Network and Information Security (“NIS Directive”). Under the NIS Directive, operators of essential services will be required to take appropriate security measures and report cybersecurity incidents. The amended draft NIS […]
Moody’s Identifies Cyber Risk As Key Factor in Credit Ratings
In a report released November 23, Moody’s Investors Service announced that the implications of cyber threats could start taking a higher priority in its credit analysis. Moody’s said it views cyber threats as similar to other extraordinary event risks, such as a natural disaster. “While we do not explicitly incorporate cyber risk as a principal […]
FTC’s Ability to Regulate Data Security Potentially Limited in FTC v. LabMD
A November 13, 2015 decision from the Federal Trade Commission’s Chief Administrative Law Judge, D. Michael Chappell, calls into question FTC enforcement in the data privacy space. The case began when the FTC filed a complaint on August 28, 2013 after an employee of LabMD, a cancer detection laboratory, downloaded peer-to-peer (“P2P”) software that exposed patient […]
Alston & Bird Partners Speak at NAWL General Counsel Institute
Kim Peretti, partner and co-chair of Alston & Bird’s Cybersecurity Preparedness & Response Team, and Allison Ryan, partner, were speakers in the session “The Role of In-House Counsel in Cybersecurity in Both the Pre- and Post-Breach Worlds” at the 11th Annual General Counsel Institute. The Institute took place November 5-6 in New York and was hosted by the National […]