The current pandemic has significantly altered how people work, shop, and communicate with each other. The majority of people who have been fortunate enough to keep their jobs are working from home, and doing most of their shopping teleconferencing and/or videoconferencing from their house or apartment. This creates security concerns for us, both personally and professionally.
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As workplaces across the country look to adapt to the pressing need to slow the transmission of the COVID-19 outbreak, many employers are turning to remote work to keep their businesses afloat while reducing the possibility of transmission.
Many large tech employers such as Google and Amazon are already prepared for the needs of a remote workforce, but for others, the wide scale adoption of remote working comes with some real challenges. In the scramble to ensure the safety of others, it’s important that businesses don’t overlook the need to ensure cybersecurity as well.
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A recent New Jersey federal court decision denying Strike 3 the right to expedited discovery highlights a recent departure from the status quo of allowing Strike 3 to subpoena Internet Service Providers (“ISP”) such as Comcast, Verizon, and Optimum, in order to discover the identity of the individual subscriber of a certain Internet Protocol (“IP”) address that Strike 3 alleges was used to illegally download its copyrighted adult movies using the file sharing platform BitTorrent. This is good news for those who find themselves caught in the well-oiled litigation machine created by Strike 3 and Malibu Media.
Read More about New Jersey Federal Court Shuts Door on Strike 3 Litigation
On July 5, 2016, the United States District Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued a decision in the case entitled United States v. Nosal. The case involved a former employer and others using the password of another employee to hack into his former employer’s database in order to access and take information which belonged to his former employer.
The decision has gained a lot of attention and press because Mr. Nosal’s criminal conviction was based upon his use of another employee’s passwords. There are a large number of articles and blog posts warning that the holding in the case could result in the criminal prosecution of an individual who uses a friend’s Netflix or HBO GO password to access those sites. While that could be one result of the decision, I believe the holding in the Nosal case does not currently go that far. Per the Ninth Circuit, “this appeal is not about password sharing. Nor is it about violating a company’s internal computer use policies.” Rather, the case revolves around accessing a protected computer with the intent to defraud as defined in the Computer Fraud & Abuse Act (CFAA), 18 U.S.C. § 1030.
Cyber security has become a growing concern for individuals and businesses across the nation. Undoubtedly, you’ve heard about breaches at Target, Wal-Mart, J.P. Morgan Chase, Home Depot, Apple, and Neiman Marcus. Hundreds of thousands of people had their names, social security numbers, financial information, and other sensitive data stolen and used unlawfully.
Theft of consumer information via the internet happens every day from any number of data or network systems to all types of people. It’s not just individuals or big box stores that are targeted. Cyber-attacks are directed at various organizations that keep clients’ and customers’ personal information on record. Hackers will look to small businesses, and even to a person’s home management company or homeowners’ association, to access their sensitive personal and financial information.
Read More about Your Business Could Be Liable for Cyber Security Breaches
As the dust settles on the legal battle between Apple and the F.B.I., businesses should take note of the many issues related to the privacy and confidentiality of electronically stored information. Though Apple arguably emerged victorious in refusing to create a backdoor for its security measures, the still unknown point of access utilized by the F.B.I. highlights the risk that electronically stored information is never truly secure. Data breaches at Sony, Home Depot, Target, and even within the federal government highlight this point.
Given their volume and value of data, businesses need to be particularly cognizant of the cyber-threats and nimble in response to cyber-attacks. However, it is not enough to simply recognize the threat posed by a cyber-attack. Businesses need to be prepared to act swiftly and effectively to prevent any further misappropriation or transmission of electronically stored information.
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