Cybersecurity

The UK Government has announced that it intends to introduce the Cyber Security and Resilience Bill (the “Bill”) to Parliament in 2025. Formally proposed as part of the King’s Speech in July, this Bill is intended to strengthen the UK’s cross-sectoral cyber security legislation to better protect the UK’s economy and infrastructure. This Bill will update the existing NIS Regulations, which derive from EU law. Part of the UK Government’s motivation seems to be to keep pace with updates to EU law in this area, specifically relating to the NIS2 Directive that starts to apply this month (see our blog post on this, here).Continue Reading What to expect from the UK’s Cyber Security and Resilience Bill (and when)

Yesterday, the European Parliament approved the Cyber Resilience Act (“CRA”), which sets out cybersecurity requirements for “products with digital elements” (“PDEs”) placed on the EU market.  The term PDE is defined broadly to include both hardware and software products, such as antivirus software, VPNs, smart home devices, connected toys, and wearables.  The approved text is available here.Continue Reading The Cyber Resilience Act is One Step Closer to Becoming Law

As many readers will be aware, the EU’s new cybersecurity directive, NIS2, imposes security, incident notification, and governance obligations on entities in a range of critical sectors, including energy, transport, finance, health, and digital infrastructure (for an overview of NIS2, see our previous post here). One of the main reasons the Commission proposed these new rules was the inconsistent ways in which Member States had implemented requirements under the prior directive, NIS. To help improve harmonization further, the Commission has now issued two guidance documents to help assess when NIS2 or sector-specific requirements apply, and to ensure that registration requirements are consistent across the Union.
Continue Reading European Commission Publishes Guidance on NIS2: Interplay with Sector-Specific Laws

On September 12, 2022, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (“CISA”) published a Request for Information, seeking public comment on how to structure implementing regulations for reporting requirements under the Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act of 2022 (“CIRCIA”).  Written comments are requested on or before November 14, 2022 and may be submitted through the Federal eRulemaking Portal: http://www.regulations.gov.Continue Reading CISA Requests Public Comment on Implementing Regulations for the Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act

The UK Government’s (UKG) proposals for new, sector-specific cybersecurity rules continue to take shape. Following the announcement of a Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Bill and a consultation on the security of apps and app stores in the Queen’s Speech (which we briefly discuss here), the UKG issued a call for views on whether action is needed to ensure cyber security in data centres and cloud services (described here).

In recent weeks, the UKG has made two further announcements:

  • On 30 August 2022, it issued a response to its public consultation on the draft Electronic Communications (Security measures) Regulations 2022 (Draft Regulations) and a draft Telecommunications Security code of practice (COP), before laying a revised version of the Draft Regulations before Parliament on 5 September.
  • On 1 September 2022, it issued a call for information on the risks associated with unauthorized access to individuals’ online accounts and personal data, and measures that could be taken to limit that risk.

We set out below further detail on these latest developments.

*****Continue Reading A packed end to the UK’s cyber summer: Government moves forward with telecoms cybersecurity proposals and consults on a Cyber Duty to Protect

On August 31, 2022, one day before the Measures for Security Assessment of Cross-border Data Transfer (“Measures”) were scheduled to take effect, the Cyberspace Administration of China (“CAC”) released a first edition of its guidance on how organizations should complete the security assessment application (“CAC Guidance”). Covington’s previous posts on the Measures can be found here.Continue Reading China Releases Guidance on Cross-border Data Transfer Security Assessment Application

Late last week, the Seventh Circuit affirmed a trial court’s ruling granting dismissal at summary judgment of claims against FCA US LLC (“FCA,” formerly known as Chrysler) and Harman International Industries, Inc. (“Harman”) for lack of Article III standing.  See Flynn v. FCA US LLC, — F. 4th —-…

Continue Reading Seventh Circuit Affirms Dismissal Of Class Claims Based Upon Speculative Hacking Risk

In early February, the Department of Homeland Security Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (“CISA”) announced the publication of a joint cybersecurity advisory observing “an increase in sophisticated, high-impact ransomware incidents against critical infrastructure organizations globally” during 2021.  The report—which was coauthored by cybersecurity authorities in the United States (CISA, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the National Security Agency), Australia (the Australian Cyber Security Centre), and United Kingdom (the National Cyber Security Centre)—emphasizes that the continued evolution of ransomware tactics and techniques throughout the past year “demonstrates ransomware threat actors’ growing technological sophistication and an increased ransomware threat to organizations globally.”
Continue Reading CISA Issues Joint Cybersecurity Advisory on 2021 Ransomware Trends and Recommendations

On January 4, 2022, the Federal Trade Commission published a warning to companies and their vendors to take reasonable steps to remediate the Log4j vulnerability (CVE-2021-44228).  The FTC provided a list of recommended remedial actions for companies using the Log4j software.  The FTC’s warning references obligations under the FTC Act and Gramm Leach Bliley Act (“GLBA”) to take reasonable action to remediate vulnerabilities, and hints at potential inquiries and enforcement actions against companies and vendors that fail to do so.  As the FTC notes in its warning, the “FTC intends to use its full legal authority to pursue companies that fail to take reasonable steps to protect consumer data from exposure as a result of Log4j, or similar known vulnerabilities in the future.”
Continue Reading FTC Warns Companies to Remediate the Log4j Vulnerability and Hints at Potential Enforcement Actions

This is the sixth in the series of Covington blogs on implementation of Executive Order 14028, “Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity,” issued by President Biden on May 12, 2021 (the “Cyber EO”).  The first blog summarized the Cyber EO’s key provisions and timelines, and the second, third, fourth, and fifth blogs described the actions taken by various federal agencies to implement the EO during June, July, August, and September 2021, respectively.  This blog summarizes key actions taken to implement the Cyber EO during October 2021.

Although the recent developments this month are directly applicable to the U.S. Government, the standards being established for U.S. Government agencies could be adopted as industry standards for all organizations that develop or acquire software similar to various industries adopting the NIST Cybersecurity Framework as a security controls baseline.
Continue Reading October 2021 Developments Under President Biden’s Cybersecurity Executive Order