I joined host Ray Dunaway yesterday on Hartford’s WTIC 1080 to discuss the OPM hack (earlier on which) and schemes to extend federal regulatory control over private data security. You can listen here.
And from yesterday’s House hearing on the subject: “OPM chief ducks blame for data breach, pins it on ‘whole of government'” [Washington Examiner]
“…Still Say We Should Give Them Cybersecurity Powers” The spectacular breach of Office of Personnel Management records, which exposed to China-based hackers information on every federal employee as well as the obviously sensitive contents of security clearance applications, was revealed when a vendor of security services was allowed to do a sales presentation on the federal network in question and discovered the already-exploited vulnerability. But of course the feds will be totally competent in prescribing practice to the private sector, right? [Mike Masnick, TechDirt] Earlier on regulation of private-sector electronic security here, here, etc. Related: W$J (DHS couldn’t move to secure networks without engaging in collective bargaining first). Related: pending bills “authorize government to impose data retention mandate on private businesses”
I’ve got a new post at Cato summarizing dramatic new testimony in the case (briefly noted here last year) of a laboratory company that got reported to the Federal Trade Commission for data breach — and drawn into a crushingly expensive legal battle — after it declined to buy data security services offered by a company with Homeland Security contracts. The battle has been raging for a while, with the nonprofit Washington, D.C. group Cause of Action representing LabMD and outlets like Mother Jones running coverage unsympathetic to its case.
If you’re Seattle, you put it on YouTube [Tyler Cowen]
The Target Corporation’s settlement of class action litigation over a major consumer data security breach is not as groundbreaking as all that, and in particular falls far short of the enormous liability payouts that were being talked of for a while [Paul Karlsgodt; Minnesota Public Radio] It does however feature attorney’s fee payouts “not to exceed $6.75 million, which is on the high end of the historical range” [Paul Bond, Lisa Kim, and Christine Czuprynski, Reed Smith] Earlier here. More: Randy Maniloff, Minneapolis Star-Tribune.
The doctor legally couldn’t tell him his son was in drug trouble. Nor could the college. Maybe time to rethink federal privacy laws? [Tony Christ, DelmarvaNow]