In each of the last three years, Cisco has surveyed organizations to learn if they reaped benefits from privacy beyond meeting compliance requirements.  The data shows that it does.  Over the past few years, data privacy has evolved from ‘nice to have’ to a business imperative and critical boardroom issue. The surveys revealed that: More than 40 percent of organizations…

The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) represents a major advancement in privacy rights for California residents – and a major set of obligations for companies that have customers in the state, regardless of where in the world they are located physically.   Millions of businesses worldwide will be subject to the CCPA. Those subject to the law will be any company…

“On April 1st, an actor in a popular dark web forum posted a link to a collection of 352 compromised Zoom accounts,” reported Yahoo Finance. The accounts were reportedly listed for hackers to troll rather than profit. Sixgill, a cybersecurity firm that reported the dark web posting, tweeted a screenshot of the dark web forum post about the compromised Zoom…

Last month, legal services firm, Epiq Global was the victim of a ransomware attack. The attack took down all of their 80 offices spread across the globe. The ransomware problem is clearly getting worse.  In Q4 2019, the average ransom payment increased by 104% to $84,116 up from $41,981 in Q3 2019  Average downtime increased to 16.2 days, from 12.1 days    Public sector agencies continued to account for an elevated portion of ransomware attacks, albeit down slightly from Q3  Healthcare…

According to Reuters, cyber insurance rates have jumped about 25 percent over the past year, due in part to costly ransomware claims. Although the number of ransomware attacks actually fell in 2019 vs. 2018, the impact of those attacks rose. This trend has cyber insurers trying to figure out new strategies to minimize their risks while also continuing to protect policyholders. To keep your cyber insurance costs from going through the roof, contact us to learn…

The SEC’s Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations (OCIE) has issued a statement announcing that because of health, safety, and firm operations disruption concerns, OCIE has moved to conducting examinations off-site through correspondence unless it is “absolutely necessary” for its teams to be on-site. Recognizing that firms are focused on maintaining operations and ensuring the safety of their employees, OCIE is working…

As social distancing measures take effect across the United States to combat the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19), it’s important to make sure your personal information also remains safe as more activity shifts online. Click here to learn about some of the most common scams exploiting coronavirus fears, that are on the rise, and some measures you can take to avoid…

In 2019, the U.S. was hit by a record number of ransomware attacks that impacted at least 948 government agencies, educational institutions and healthcare facilities at a cost of more than $7.5 billion by a conservative estimate.   Unfortunately, there is no single silver bullet to stop ransomware.  However, according to lessons learned from Florida municipality ransomware attacks, the following will…

Using unique, strong passwords is not always enough to prevent cybercriminals from gaining access to sensitive information. Click here to learn about a better way to protect your online accounts and ultimately your business.

Phishing attacks are one of the most common security challenges that both individuals and companies face in keeping their information secure. Whether it’s getting access to passwords, credit cards, or other sensitive information, cybercriminals are using email, social media, phone calls, and any form of communication they can to steal valuable data. Click here to learn about five phishing fundamentals…

Join us on January 28 for the Data Privacy Day 2020 event live from LinkedIn! Experts will discuss the changes GDPR has had on the privacy landscape across the globe.  Register by clicking here.

The SEC recently released their 2020 examination priorities. These are the areas the examination branch of the SEC (OCIE) will be focused on during exams this year. The SEC specifically calls out RIAs in this year’s priorities: “Specific to RIAs, OCIE will continue to focus its examinations on assessing RIAs’ protection of clients’ personal financial information. Particular focus areas will…

According to Canon’s latest Office of the Future Survey, the same digital transformations that are making companies more productive, efficient, and innovative are also unearthing security vulnerabilities. For example, nearly half (46%) of survey respondents say they’re spending less than 5% of their IT budget on security. Only 25% have state-of-the-art disaster recovery procedures in place. An astonishing 40% have no security agenda…

IT isn’t like a rock festival – you don’t want to give anyone an all-access pass. Complying with regulations like CCPA, HIPAA, PCI DSS, and Sarbanes-Oxley, requires you to control who can access what data and applications across your company. You also have to monitor, manage, and audit every single user account, from creation to termination, and keep a record…

As new data privacy regulations like the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) roll out, organizations concerned about compliance are changing how they handle sensitive customer information. One interesting trend we’ve noted is that companies are creating committees to handle customer requests about their personal information, often including someone from the privacy office, someone from the security office, and someone from…