Understatement of the year: COVID-19 presented significant challenges for everyone!! But, as with any crisis there were winners and losers. Some were able to capitalize on the pandemic and walk away with gains instead of losses. Winner: The Internet. We turned to the internet for almost everything during the pandemic: shopping, working and learning online at a scale never seen before. Losers: Live Entertainment, Restaurants, Higher Education, Airlines . . . any profession th

In a novel lawsuit, an insurance company has sued one of its law firms claiming that the law firm was the victim of a data breach.

About two hours after Lien received the first email, Principle wired more than $1.7 million to the scammers.

With the recent pandemic of cyber attacks in the form of ransomware, it was only a matter of time . . .

We are in the digital age with new and fascinating developments. But, the risks are changing, and we need to know, understand and prepare.

Within the last year, the general public has seen how ransomware can cripple municipalities and companies. Is there a solution - Maybe?

Last year, I published a blog on a social engineering cyber scheme that resulted in Quality Plus Services, Inc. losing $1,633,018.00 to fraudsters. QPS reported the loss to its insurance carrier, who denied the claim. QPS then filed a lawsuit against the carrier in Virginia Federal Court. Recently, the parties filed competing motions asking the federal judge for a quick ruling on whether there is commercial crime coverage for the loss. The Sequence of Events Rather than anal

It's becoming a common set of facts: In a real estate deal, a law firm received fraudulent wiring instructions that resulted in funds being sent to fraudsters. The client then sued the law firm to recoup the funds. The twist in this case is that the law firm sued another company for indemnification. The law firm claimed that the other company was hacked and inadvertently disclosed the client's personal information that led to the business email compromise and eventual fraud.

On November 30, 2018, Marriott announced that it was the victim of one of the largest cyber data breaches in history. It's still very early, but reports are that the breach started in 2014 and impacted over 500 million guests. Just hours after Marriott announced the breach, attorneys filed the first class action lawsuit in Maryland. Why Maryland? Because Marriott’s terms of service states that Maryland is the agreed upon venue for all U.S. claims arising out of guest relati

In general, Cyberlaw is considered to be a new field of law dealing with the Internet. It encompasses cases, statutes, regulations and disputes that affect people and business interacting through computers and mobile devices. Cyberlaw covers e-commerce, intellectual property, privacy, security, etc. There are others that define Cyberlaw differently and view it as an area of the law that encompasses all technology. I recently read a law review article written by Meg Leta Jones

On November 21, Corporate Compliance Insights published an article I wrote. Here is an excerpt: With the weekly reports of cyber events and data breaches, cybersecurity is a trending topic. While the concern is warranted, there is some confusion between information privacy and information security. Just because information is private does not necessarily mean it is secure. Executives, compliance professionals and IT departments need to understand the difference and take nece

The Tampa Bay Chapter of the Federal Bar Association hosted a seminar luncheon titled "Cybersecurity and the Law." Mr. Sri Sridharan, the Managing Director of the Florida Center for Cybersecurity (otherwise known as Cyber Florida) presented on the nation's cybersecurity threat. Cyber Florida is a state-funded organization dedicated to positioning Florida as a national leader in cybersecurity through education and workforce development. It is hosted at the University of South

Within the last year, two Federal judges in the Middle District of Florida decided that commercial general liability (CGL) insurance policies are not designed to cover the unauthorized publication of private information in cyber data breaches. Innovak Innovak International, Inc. is a technology company that designs, develops, and sells accounting and payroll computer software systems to schools, school districts, and to other entities across the United States. Innovak's soft

The Internet has changed the way people and companies conduct business. Commerce has shifted from brick and mortar, person-to-person engagements, to Internet-driven global transactions. Through laws like UETA, the HITECH Act, the GLBA and others, the US government encourages the shift from manual, analog, paper-driven undertakings to automated, digital, paperless transactions. There is no doubt that as the use of the Internet continues to grow, it has become the primary med

IT Business Net recently published an article I wrote. Here are some excerpts: We are in the Cyber Age. We rely on the internet and networked devices to engage in commerce, exchange information, and conduct business.  Even legal professionals rely on the internet to eFile documents with courts, engage in eDiscovery, and conduct research. Information technology (IT) departments, or managed service providers, are now critical to the successes of almost all organizations, wheth

I have written a couple of blog posts where I briefly share my opinion that courts misunderstand the stages of a hack. Courts do not appreciate that a hack also entails infecting a computer with malicious software for the sole purpose of observing electronic communications that may lead to a phishing or spoofing scheme. Without the information gathered through spyware, fraudsters would not have intimate or confidential details that make spear and whale phishing so convincin

Last week, I wrote about the Children Online Privacy Protection Act. The day after I published that blog, the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC) wrote a Letter to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) asking for an investigation into Facebook's Messenger Kids. The CCFC asked the FTC to take enforcement action against Facebook for violating the Children Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). Recall from my previous blog post that pursuant to COPPA operators such as

After my last blog post, Protecting Children's Privacy Online, I wanted to discuss another cyber law issue that affects children. Bullying and harassment in schools has always been a problem. StopBullying.gov is a federal government website managed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that provides information from various government agencies on bullying. The website has a special section on cyberbullying. According to the website, social media and digital f

Anything connected to the Internet can be hacked. With the Internet of Things (IoT), everything is being connected to the Internet. Therefore, everything will eventually become hackable. This is how Bruce Schneier starts his newest book, Click Here to Kill Everybody: Security and Survival in a Hyber-connected World. As he puts it, everything is, or will be, a computer. A car is a computer on wheels, a plane is a computer in the air, a smartphone is a computer that makes

Determining jurisdiction for companies that operate over the Internet is a very complicated issue. The question of jurisdiction is whether a particular court has the power to hear a lawsuit, impose sanctions and enforce judgments. Companies that operate in cyberspace have an international presence and are not restricted by traditional notions of sovereign territories and boundaries. In theory, if a company has an Internet presence in every country, then every country has ju