Disclosing protected health information (PHI) to a business associate without a compliant business associate agreement (BAA) is an improper disclosure under the HIPAA privacy and security regulations. According to the HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR), an error like that can cost a small healthcare provider $31,000.
OCR recently announced a resolution agreement (pdf) with
On April 6, 2017, New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez signed HB 15, making New Mexico the 48th state to enact a data breach notification law. The law has an effective date of June 16, 2017 and follows the same general structure of many of the breach notification laws in other states.
Importantly, the definition of
The Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC), which represents over 42,000 in-house counsel across 85 countries, recently released its ACC Chief Legal Officers (CLO) 2017 Survey which found that two-thirds of in-house legal leaders ranked data protection and information privacy as ‘very’ or ‘extremely’ important. In response to this growing concern, the ACC recently released “first-of-its-kind”
As you know if you regularly read this blog, the New York State DFS finally finalized its “first-in-the-nation” cybersecurity rules with an effective date of March 1, 2017. And their reach is quite large: DFS-supervised entities from insurers and banks to mortgage brokers and credit unions (and their third-party service providers) will have to begin
Co-author: Devin Rauchwerger
The Active Cyber Defense Certainty Act is a new bill that is gaining positive bipartisan support and significant interest from business communities, lawmakers and academics. The proposed bill amends the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act which does not provide adequate deterrence for criminal hacking. The new bill is aimed at helping businesses
We wanted to keep you informed on the progress of the DFS cybersecurity regulations, as they complete their journey through the approval process. DFS has been working on the regulations since its 2013-2014 studies on cybersecurity risks to financial institutions. As reported in our article, Getting Prepared for the New York Department of Financial Services’
In today’s digital age, security tends to be thought about in terms of firewalls, malware, encryption and other safeguards for electronic systems. But the security of those systems, as well as an organization’s facilities, people and other critical assets depends significantly on physical security as well. We are delighted to share below some thoughts from
On February 2, 2017, the IRS issued a warning to all employers regarding the resurgence of a W-2 based cyber scam. The scam, which targets the corporate world during tax season, is currently “spreading to other sectors, including school districts, tribal organizations and nonprofits.” (irs.gov/news-events).
This cyber-scam is simple, but highly successful. It consists of
New York State Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman announced a settlement with Acer Service Corporation (a Taiwanese computer manufacturer) relating to the NYSAG’s investigation of a breach of Acer’s data. The data breach, first reported in June, 2016, involved data for over 35,000 customers throughout the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico, including 2,250 customers
In honor of Data Privacy Day, we provide the following “Top 10 for 2017.” While the list is by no means exhaustive, it does provide some hot topics for organizations to consider in 2017.
1. Phishing Attacks and Ransomware – Phishing, as the name implies, is the attempt, usually via email, to obtain sensitive or