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
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
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
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