Data Protection Standards Fall While Ransomware Attack Rates Rise

Hayley Lattman is an attorney who specializes in providing commercial and legal counsel to online retailers regarding auditors and taxes. In her career as a legal counselor, Hayley Lattman has done her research regarding the state of cybersecurity and data protection worldwide.

In a study by Thales Group, a French multinational electrical systems company, significant gaps were found in the majority of respondents’ cybersecurity (of whom most were organizations with multicloud solutions to their cybersecurity needs). Only 17 percent encrypted more than half of their sensitive data, leaving it open to ransomware attacks. This figure coincides with a 148 percent increase in ransomware attacks as of 2021, making it a record-breaking time for cyber theft and extortion.

The report indicates that the lack of encryption is a cost-saving measure made by these companies to make up for the cost of having multiple clouds storing their data. While spreading the data out across different sources makes it less likely that a single ransomware attack will capture all the sensitive data it wants, this approach may make ransomware attacks more likely and more successful. 40 percent of correspondents reported security breaches in the previous year, indicating that the low-cost approach to security may be a risky one.

Technologies Keep up with Evolving Data Privacy Regulations

Serving as marketing and licensing counsel with a company in Brooklyn, attorney Hayley Lattman (Geftman-Gold) has an extensive background in corporate law. One of Hayley Lattman’s areas of focus as a lawyer is privacy and data marketing. This centers on the information collected by companies about customers and how it is used in marketing efforts.

As explored in a 2020 Harvard Business Review (HBR) article, data privacy norms and rules are in a state of change. A number of government agencies, from the EU to California, have set in place new privacy and website security measures. Tangible results of legislation such as the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) include web forms that require opt-in checkbox consent before a user is added to a mailing list. Companies must provide web pages that enable users to submit requests for modifying, accessing, and deleting stored personal information. In addition, disclosures and privacy statements are now more accessible.

According to the HBR article, established B2B and B2C marketers were already conversant in the need to obtain consent from prospects. However, with the pandemic suddenly shifting many businesses online, there was an immediate need for clear compliance guidance and solutions.

One strategy increasingly used is automation and analytics technologies that meet specific legislative requirements and ensure that auditor and customer requests are fielded. An example is automated data deletion and extraction capacities that comply with consumer requests, under CCPA, for obtaining a copy of the categories of data being collected (and potentially having such data deleted).

The TechGC SPACs and Direct Listings Virtual Forum

Brooklyn’s Hayley Lattman (Geftman-Gold) builds upon more than two decades of experience as a New York City attorney and legal advisor with a particular focus on technology and communications. To inform her professional endeavors as a lawyer and counsel, Hayley Lattman holds active membership in TechGC.

TechGC is an invitation-only online community of venture capital fund and technology company general counsels that prizes education and mentorship as key components of its fundamental mission. To further these ends, it regularly sponsors continuing legal education events such as SPACs and Direct Listings Virtual Forum, which took place from February 2 through February 4, 2021.

Featuring a keynote address by Social Capital founder and CEO Chamath Palihapitiya, as well as presentations by more than a dozen member speakers, this event covered both direct listings and SPACs (special purpose acquisition companies) as two popular ways of going public without completing the traditional initial public offering process. Participants had the opportunity to earn seven continuing legal education credits while learning about the strategic benefits of both the direct listing and SPAC approaches.