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Ashden Fein

Ashden Fein is a vice chair of the firm’s global Cybersecurity practice. He advises clients on cybersecurity and national security matters, including crisis management and incident response, risk management and governance, government and internal investigations, and regulatory compliance.

For cybersecurity matters, Ashden counsels clients on preparing for and responding to cyber-based attacks, assessing security controls and practices for the protection of data and systems, developing and implementing cybersecurity risk management and governance programs, and complying with federal and state regulatory requirements. Ashden frequently supports clients as the lead investigator and crisis manager for global cyber and data security incidents, including data breaches involving personal data, advanced persistent threats targeting intellectual property across industries, state-sponsored theft of sensitive U.S. government information, extortion and ransomware, and destructive attacks.

Additionally, Ashden assists clients from across industries with leading internal investigations and responding to government inquiries related to the U.S. national security and insider risks. He also advises aerospace, defense, and intelligence contractors on security compliance under U.S. national security laws and regulations including, among others, the National Industrial Security Program (NISPOM), U.S. government cybersecurity regulations, FedRAMP, and requirements related to supply chain security.

Before joining Covington, Ashden served on active duty in the U.S. Army as a Military Intelligence officer and prosecutor specializing in cybercrime and national security investigations and prosecutions -- to include serving as the lead trial lawyer in the prosecution of Private Chelsea (Bradley) Manning for the unlawful disclosure of classified information to Wikileaks. Ashden is a retired U.S. Army officer.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recently announced that it agreed to proposed consent orders with two companies that experienced recent cybersecurity incidents, Illuminate Education (“Illuminate”) and Illusory Systems, which does business as Nomad (“Illusory”), to resolve allegations that both companies’ information security practices had violated Section 5 of the FTC

Continue Reading FTC Announces 10-Year Information Security Consent Orders with Illuminate Education and Illusory Systems

On December 11, 2025, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (“CISA”) released its Cybersecurity Performance Goals 2.0 (“CPG 2.0”), an update to its core set of recommended cybersecurity practices for critical infrastructure owners and operators, which we previously wrote about here.  Established by the 2021 National Security Memorandum

Continue Reading CISA Releases Cybersecurity Performance Goals 2.0 for Critical Infrastructure

The Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015 (“CISA 2015”), which provides protections for sharing cybersecurity threat information with the federal government and others, was reauthorized under the funding bill to reopen the federal government, which was enacted on November 12, 2025.  The information sharing mechanisms and protections under CISA 2015, which had previously sunset on September 30, 2025, will now extend through January 30, 2026.Continue Reading Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015 Reauthorized Through January 2026

The Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015 (“CISA 2015”), which provided protections for sharing cybersecurity threat information with the federal government and others, officially sunset on September 30, 2025 pursuant to the law’s original sunset date after efforts to re-authorize it did not succeed.  The law created a cybersecurity information

Continue Reading Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015 Allowed to Sunset

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (“CISA”) plans to delay the publication of its much-anticipated cybersecurity incident reporting rule implementing the Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act of 2022 (“CIRCIA”).  According to an entry on the Spring 2025 Unified Agenda of Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions, released on September

Continue Reading CISA Delays Cyber Incident Reporting Rule for Critical Infrastructure

Last month, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (“CISA”), in partnership with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”), National Security Agency, Environmental Protection Agency, and cybersecurity authorities in Australia, Canada, Germany, Netherlands, and New Zealand, published new cybersecurity guidance (the “Guidance”) related to operational technology (“OT”), i.e., systems and devices that interact with a physical environment that are commonly used in manufacturing, utilities, oil and gas production, transportation, and other industrial operations.  The Guidance, which will be of interest to any organizations that have an OT environment, is intended to help critical infrastructure entities develop and implement an OT asset inventory and taxonomy to protect their critical assets and improve incident response preparedness.  It comes in advance of upcoming cyber incident reporting requirements for critical infrastructure in the U.S. under the Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act (“CIRCIA”) and in the EU under the revised Network and Information Systems Directive (“NIS2 Directive”).  The Guidance is the latest in a series of joint releases from CISA, FBI and other U.S. and international partners on various security-related topics largely intended for critical infrastructure, including AI data security, product security bad practices, quantum computing cyber threats, and secure software development.Continue Reading CISA Publishes OT Asset Inventory Guidance for Critical Infrastructure

In a recently announced settlement agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”), Illumina, Inc. (“Illumina”) agreed to pay $9.8 million to resolve claims arising from alleged cybersecurity vulnerabilities in genomic sequencing systems that the company sold to federal agencies.  The case is the latest in a series of False Claims Act (“FCA”) settlements under the current administration that evidence DOJ’s continued focus on cybersecurity obligations for government contractors, particularly those that maintain sensitive data and personal information on behalf of federal customers.Continue Reading Latest Cybersecurity False Claims Act Settlement with Diagnostics Provider Focuses on Sensitive Health Systems

Oklahoma recently enacted Senate Bill 626, which substantially amends the state’s data breach notification law to broaden the scope of notification obligations and add a new regulator notification requirement along with a new “safe harbor”-style provision that provides liability protections if certain security measures are implemented.  The changes to Oklahoma’s law follow changes to other state data breach notification laws within the past year, including New York’s addition of a 30-day deadline for notice to individuals (added in early 2025) and Pennsylvania’s addition of a regulator notification requirement and obligations to provide free credit monitoring (added in mid-2024).  Key updates from Oklahoma’s bill, which will go into effect on January 1, 2026, are discussed in further detail below.Continue Reading Oklahoma Substantially Amends Its Data Breach Notification Statute

The U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC”) recently issued Order No. 907 (the “Order”), approving a new Critical Infrastructure Protection (“CIP”) Reliability Standard, CIP-015-1.  The new standard will require covered entities that maintain certain bulk electric systems (“BES”) to implement Internal Network Security Monitoring (“INSM”) for network traffic within their “electronic security perimeter,” i.e., the logical border surrounding the network of interconnected devices that comprise a BES Cyber System.  However, as discussed below, these requirements will not go into effect for approximately three years, and many covered entities will have an additional two years before they are required to comply.Continue Reading FERC Finalizes New Internal Network Security Monitoring Requirements for Bulk Electric Systems

On June 30, 2025, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Department of Defense Cyber Crime Center (DC3), and the National Security Agency (NSA) warned U.S. critical infrastructure organizations and other companies that the threat of cyber attacks from Iran-affiliated cyber actors is heightened

Continue Reading U.S. Government Issues Cybersecurity Warning to Critical Infrastructure Operators and Others