Everyone Is Thinking about It

• Author: Donna P. Suchy
• Position: Donna P. Suchy is chair of the ABA Section of Intellectual Property Law. She is managing counsel, intellectual property, at Rockwell Collins in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. At Rockwell Collins, she is responsible for developing and implementing patent corporate strategy, litigation, due diligence, and advising corporate management on the legal and...
• Pages: 3-10

Published in Landslide® magazine, Volume 9, Number 3, a publication of the ABA Section of Intellectual Property Law (ABA-IPL), ©2016 by the American Bar Association. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved. This

information or any portion thereof may not be copied or disseminated in any form or by any means or stored in an electronic database or retrieval system without the express written consent of the American Bar Association.

The devices, instruments, and

technology we use today are

increasingly complex, and the

huge amount of data generated is difcult

to comprehend—and even more difcult

to protect. Cybersecurity is on everyone’s

minds, and it’s especially on the minds of

lawyers and those we represent.

In the aviation industry, for exam-

ple, one aircraft generates hundreds of

gigabytes of sensor data per day. Global

mobile data trafc grew 74 percent in

2015 and reached 3.7 exabytes per month

at the end of 2015. Mobile data traf-

c has grown 4,000-fold over the past 10

years and almost 400 million-fold over

the past 15 years.1 To put this in perspec-

tive, ve exabytes will store all the words

ever spoken by human beings. Tom Lan-

dauer estimated that the brain holds about

200 megabytes of information. For exam-

ple, in 2015 we were exchanging more

than three times the brain capacity of the

world’s population monthly, and over the

course of a year, more than 36 times the

total memory of humans alive.2 Corpora-

tions and law rms transmit exabytes of

sensitive data worldwide every second that

are exposed to misuse and theft by anyone

who can access the Internet. The challenge

is to use technology for good not evil, by

using the latest technological develop-

ments to protect data from illegal hacking.

In April 2016, an American Bar

Association (ABA) meeting and arti-

cle3 studied the threat to law rms.

Over the past few years, law rms have

fallen victim to simple, easily prevent-

able data breaches.4 Those of us who

have practiced in this area are familiar

with terms such as bruiting, password

hashes, malware, phishing, reverse

shells, and SQL injection attacks. Dan-

gers can come from many places,

including organized crime, cyber

thieves, hackers, malicious insiders, and

busy or careless employees. Malicious

actors use phishing e-mails, phones,

websites, equipment, smart devices,

wearable devices, and software.

In order to keep up with these

threats, attorneys and all legal pro-

fessionals must rst understand the

technology they use and understand

the technical standards designed by the

IT community to ght cybersecurity

threats. Then we should work together,

in our organizations and in the legal

forums, to team up and fast track laws

that will impact our corporations and

rms and their ability to prevent “cyber

misuse” and hacking.

Some Background

There are a number of federal agencies

working hard to help protect our com-

panies and rms from cyberattacks.

Currently, the FBI is responsible for coor-

dinating effective responses in America

by investigating high-tech crimes, includ-

ing cyber-based terrorism, espionage,

computer intrusions, and major cyber

fraud. The FBI will continue to gather

and share information and intelligence

with public and private sector partners

worldwide as long as it receives effective

updates from the rms and corporations.5

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Com-

mission (SEC) adopted Regulation S-ID6

in 2013 to protect individuals’ nonpub-

lic personal information (NPI). The SEC

requires consideration of cybersecurity

risks. As part of the Cyber Intelligence

Sharing and Protection Act of 2013, the

Department of Homeland Security (DHS)

was designated as the lead civilian federal

entity to receive cyber threat information.

Prior to 2013, cybersecurity threats

put condentiality, integrity, and avail-

ability of critical services at risk. The

DHS, along with its government and

private sector partners, was tasked with

countering cyber threats while sup-

porting a cyber ecosystem that is open,

transparent, and less vulnerable to

manipulation. On May16, 2013, the

DHS National Cybersecurity and Com-

munications Integration Center (NCCIC)

announced plans to protect critical U.S.

infrastructure from cyberattacks by

coordinating private sector cyber threat

information sharing. The NCCIC contin-

ues to provide comprehensive and robust

information sharing, incident response,

technical assistance, and analysis capa-

bilities to private sector, government,

and international partners.7

After 2013 and the formation of

the NCCIC, U.S. corporate attorneys

became much more aware of the danger

cyber theft posed to their organizations.

The federal government studied these

issues and consolidated the responsibil-

ity in specic teams reporting directly

to top management, as a well-pro-

tected organization is less likely to be

victimized and stands to attract more

security-aware customers as it is bet-

ter positioned to deliver services with

effective and secure technology. The

advice of cross-disciplined teams usu-

ally includes both corporate attorneys

and IT specialists because both legal

and technical issues are involved.8

Law Firms Are Targets

One investigation of a Russian cyber theft

revealed that 13 of the top 15 most pres-

tigious law rms were on a list of targets.

Why did the hackers focus on corporate

law rms and not on other groups? One

Donna P. Suchy is chair of the ABA Section of Intellectual Property Law. She is managing

counsel, intellectual property, at Rockwell Collins in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. At Rockwell

Collins, she is responsible for developing and implementing patent corporate strategy,

litigation, due diligence, and advising corporate management on the legal and operational

implications of IP laws. She can be reached at donna.suchy@rockwellcollins.com.

Perspective

By DonnaP. Suchy

Everyone Is Thinking about It

Continued on page 7