Law.com Subscribers SAVE 30%

Call 855-808-4530 or email [email protected] to receive your discount on a new subscription.

When Your Data Goes Viral: Insurance for Data Breaches

By Sherilyn Pastor and Kelly Lloyd
December 31, 2014

Data breaches are part of the technological age. Indeed, 2013 was dubbed the year of the “mega breach,” and in 2014, as of October, there had been 621 publicly reported data breaches, exposing 77,890,487 records. See, Identity Theft Resource Center, 2014 Data Breach Category Summary (Oct. 21, 2014). In early October 2014, JPMorgan Chase reported a data breach affecting as many as 76 million households and 7 million small businesses, making it one of the largest data breaches ever reported.

A data breach typically involves the unauthorized release or access of personal or confidential information. Personal information includes names, addresses, Social Security numbers, financial information, or health information. In addition to personal information, a data breach can also jeopardize a company's confidential information such as client records, trade secrets, privileged legal information, or employee records. Although many associate data breaches with hackers or cyberattacks, human error, such as a mistake in computer coding or losing a company laptop, also have resulted in significant breaches. A 2014 study concluded that 44% of data breaches were from malicious or criminal attacks against an organization, but 31% resulted from employee negligence and 25% resulted from system glitches.

Read These Next
Bankruptcy Sales: Finding a Diamond In the Rough Image

There is no efficient market for the sale of bankruptcy assets. Inefficient markets yield a transactional drag, potentially dampening the ability of debtors and trustees to maximize value for creditors. This article identifies ways in which investors may more easily discover bankruptcy asset sales.

Judge Rules Shaquille O'Neal Will Face Securities Lawsuit for Promotion, Sale of NFTs Image

A federal district court in Miami, FL, has ruled that former National Basketball Association star Shaquille O'Neal will have to face a lawsuit over his promotion of unregistered securities in the form of cryptocurrency tokens and that he was a "seller" of these unregistered securities.

Blockchain Domains: New Developments for Brand Owners Image

Blockchain domain names offer decentralized alternatives to traditional DNS-based domain names, promising enhanced security, privacy and censorship resistance. However, these benefits come with significant challenges, particularly for brand owners seeking to protect their trademarks in these new digital spaces.

Why So Many Great Lawyers Stink at Business Development and What Law Firms Are Doing About It Image

Why is it that those who are best skilled at advocating for others are ill-equipped at advocating for their own skills and what to do about it?

A Lawyer's System for Active Reading Image

Active reading comprises many daily tasks lawyers engage in, including highlighting, annotating, note taking, comparing and searching texts. It demands more than flipping or turning pages.