The European Union's General Data Protection Regulation will affect how U.S. companies deal with the rising threat of ransomware attacks, according to a leading privacy lawyer, by requiring the reporting of incidents even if the impact on data or systems is minimal.
If the event involves an “unplanned unavailability of that data,” entities will need to report the incident under the EU GDPR, said Harriet Pearson of the law firm Hogan Lovells.
Pearson said the GDPR's expansive approach to data covered by the rule -- including availability as well as confidentiality -- will likely alter how many U.S. companies deal with a ransomware attack.
Currently, if an organization determines the event had no significant impact on data or systems it may not report it.
Pearson said the strict 72-hour reporting requirement of the GDPR might provide some “relief” because attacked organizations will report quickly without much information about what happened, and then will conduct an internal risk assessment and can withdraw the report if minimal effects are found.
She said the EU “will start taking reports quickly without a lot of detail,” adding that she expects “fairly sparse reports” after the EU rule goes into effect on Friday.
And on cue, Both Google and Facebook were sued for each almost 4 Billion dollarson GDPR-day, May 25th 2018. Link: https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/25/17393766/facebook-google-gdpr-lawsuit-max-schrems-europe
Pearson spoke on a panel at the Georgetown University Cybersecurity Law Institute's conference on Wednesday.
Source: "Inside Cybersecurity", which is a subscription-based premium news service for policy professionals who need to know about evolving federal policies to protect cyberspace: https://insidecybersecurity.com/daily-briefs/lawyer-gdpr-will-affect-ransomware-reporting-us
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