As 2017 comes to a close, the Miller Johnson Privacy & Cybersecurity team takes a moment to reflect on the past year to help predict cybersecurity trends in 2018. In 2017, our clients experienced an unprecedented number of cyber-incidents and data breaches. Our small to medium-sized business clients were impacted most. These attacks coincided with […]

With Uber joining Equifax, JP Morgan, Target and others as the latest victim of a high-profile data breach, all companies should be evaluating how they can protect themselves from data breaches and the fallout.  Over the past month, we have covered how to encrypt your laptop and covered how to send secure emails.  Even if […]

Regular email, without some form of added security such as encryption, is not secure.  By that we mean when you use Outlook or Gmail to send an email to another person, unless you have deliberately added a layer of security (e.g., encryption and/or password protection), that email is not secure. Email was not designed with […]

Last week we told you about the $2.5 million laptop.  What if we told you that fine could have been avoided with one, simple step?  That’s right there would have been no data breach and no $2.5 million fine if the stolen laptop had been encrypted. In this post, we’ll discuss encryption basics, including how […]

In April 2017, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) announced yet another HIPAA settlement agreement with a health care provider relating to a stolen mobile device containing Protected Health Information (“PHI”).  As part of this settlement agreement, CardioNet agreed to pay $2.5 million and implement a corrective action plan resulting from the […]

If your company experiences a data breach, the first person you should contact is your lawyer.  While this advice is certainly self-serving to the authors, it is nevertheless the most prudent course of action. In the first few moments after a data breach, everything you say or do is discoverable in subsequent litigation or other […]

The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) recently announced (https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2017/09/three-companies-agree-settle-ftc-charges-they-falsely-claimed) that it had settled charges against three different companies for misleading consumers about their participation in the EU-US Privacy Shield (“Privacy Shield”) framework.  These are the FTC’s first enforcement actions brought under the Privacy Shield. The FTC alleged the three companies falsely claimed they were certified to […]

Ever since the news broke regarding the Equifax breach affecting over 140 million people in the U.S., we have received daily phone calls from clients, friends, and family asking what they can do to protect themselves.  Should I sign up for the credit monitoring?  Am I am going to waive my right to join a […]