Cybersecurity is always top-of-mind for insurance professionals and risk managers, and it’s also an important area of focus for general counsel and their legal departments.
In addition to helping their organizations navigate returning employees to the office, in-house teams also have to contend with litigation backlogs and shrinking staffs — not to mention the occasional ransomware attack.
But the truth is that ransomware attack or not, cybersecurity will never be far from a GC’s radar. Many organizations have begun to recognize cybersecurity as a risk-based function rather than a strictly technical one, with legal teams on the front lines of making sure their company has the right cyber insurance or that vendors are disposing of data properly.
It’s definitely not a one-and-done type of deal. In the above slideshow, we look at five reasons (other than ransomware) cybersecurity will stay at the top of general counsels’ to-do list.
Although it is widely known that ransomware attacks have exploded in frequency and severity, other forms of cyber-related claims also pose a significant risk.
On April 26, 2021, leaked data from the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police Department appeared online after the department was hit by a ransomware attack. The data that was posted online included screenshots of arrest records and internal memos.
The group that claimed responsibility for the attack, Babuk, threatened to leak further data if their ransom demands were not met within three days, including information about police informants. Babuk claimed to have downloaded a total of 250 gigabytes of data. As of this writing, there is no information about whether the Metropolitan Police paid the ransom.
