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Ashden Fein

Ashden Fein is a vice chair of the firm’s global Cybersecurity practice. He advises clients on cybersecurity and national security matters, including crisis management and incident response, risk management and governance, government and internal investigations, and regulatory compliance.

For cybersecurity matters, Ashden counsels clients on preparing for and responding to cyber-based attacks, assessing security controls and practices for the protection of data and systems, developing and implementing cybersecurity risk management and governance programs, and complying with federal and state regulatory requirements. Ashden frequently supports clients as the lead investigator and crisis manager for global cyber and data security incidents, including data breaches involving personal data, advanced persistent threats targeting intellectual property across industries, state-sponsored theft of sensitive U.S. government information, extortion and ransomware, and destructive attacks.

Additionally, Ashden assists clients from across industries with leading internal investigations and responding to government inquiries related to the U.S. national security and insider risks. He also advises aerospace, defense, and intelligence contractors on security compliance under U.S. national security laws and regulations including, among others, the National Industrial Security Program (NISPOM), U.S. government cybersecurity regulations, FedRAMP, and requirements related to supply chain security.

Before joining Covington, Ashden served on active duty in the U.S. Army as a Military Intelligence officer and prosecutor specializing in cybercrime and national security investigations and prosecutions -- to include serving as the lead trial lawyer in the prosecution of Private Chelsea (Bradley) Manning for the unlawful disclosure of classified information to Wikileaks. Ashden is a retired U.S. Army officer.

Now that the final Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) Program and Procurement Rules have been issued by the Department of War (DoW) (see our CMMC Toolkit for in-depth analysis of these Rules) and the CMMC Program is set to begin in earnest, there is some uncertainty in industry as to

Continue Reading How Will DoW Determine Which Level of CMMC Applies to My Agreement?

The Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015 (“CISA 2015”), which provided protections for sharing cybersecurity threat information with the federal government and others, officially sunset on September 30, 2025 pursuant to the law’s original sunset date after efforts to re-authorize it did not succeed.  The law created a cybersecurity information

Continue Reading Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015 Allowed to Sunset

This blog post discusses the Department of Defense’s (“DoD”) new cybersecurity rule that imposes certain cybersecurity requirements on relevant DoD contractors and subcontractors. The post will be of interest to all DoD contractors, subcontractors, and possibly affiliates of contractors that may be impacted by the new rule’s cybersecurity requirements.

On September 10, 2025, DoD published the final version of the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (“CMMC”) Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (“DFARS”) Procurement Rule (“Procurement Rule” or “Rule”) in the Federal Register.  This Rule imposes the contractual requirements associated with the CMMC Program Rule that was published in final form in October 2024.  The Procurement Rule will become effective sixty days after publication, on November 10, 2025 and will be implemented in a phased approach.  Continue Reading Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) Program Procurement Final Rule Announced

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (“CISA”) plans to delay the publication of its much-anticipated cybersecurity incident reporting rule implementing the Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act of 2022 (“CIRCIA”).  According to an entry on the Spring 2025 Unified Agenda of Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions, released on September

Continue Reading CISA Delays Cyber Incident Reporting Rule for Critical Infrastructure

In a recently announced settlement agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”), Illumina, Inc. (“Illumina”) agreed to pay $9.8 million to resolve claims arising from alleged cybersecurity vulnerabilities in genomic sequencing systems that the company sold to federal agencies.  The case is the latest in a series of False Claims Act (“FCA”) settlements under the current administration that evidence DOJ’s continued focus on cybersecurity obligations for government contractors, particularly those that maintain sensitive data and personal information on behalf of federal customers.Continue Reading Latest Cybersecurity False Claims Act Settlement with Diagnostics Provider Focuses on Sensitive Health Systems

Oklahoma recently enacted Senate Bill 626, which substantially amends the state’s data breach notification law to broaden the scope of notification obligations and add a new regulator notification requirement along with a new “safe harbor”-style provision that provides liability protections if certain security measures are implemented.  The changes to Oklahoma’s law follow changes to other state data breach notification laws within the past year, including New York’s addition of a 30-day deadline for notice to individuals (added in early 2025) and Pennsylvania’s addition of a regulator notification requirement and obligations to provide free credit monitoring (added in mid-2024).  Key updates from Oklahoma’s bill, which will go into effect on January 1, 2026, are discussed in further detail below.Continue Reading Oklahoma Substantially Amends Its Data Breach Notification Statute

This is the fifth blog in a series of Covington blogs on cybersecurity policies, executive orders (“EOs”), and other actions of the Trump Administration.  The fourth blog is available here and our initial blog is available here.  This blog describes key cybersecurity developments that took place in June 2025. 

White House Issues New Cybersecurity Executive Order

On June 6, President Trump issued an Executive Order (“Sustaining Select Efforts to Strengthen the Nation’s Cybersecurity and Amending Executive Order 13694 and Executive Order 14144”) (the Order) that modifies certain initiatives in prior Executive Orders issued by Presidents Obama and Biden and highlights key cybersecurity priorities for the current Administration.  We wrote about the Order in additional detail here.

At a high level, the Order: (i) directs that existing federal government regulations and policy be revised to focus on securing third-party software supply chains, quantum cryptography, artificial intelligence, and Internet of Things (IoT) devices; and (ii) more expressly focuses cybersecurity-related sanctions authorities on “foreign” persons.  Although the Order makes certain changes to prior cybersecurity related Executive Orders issued under previous administrations, it generally leaves the framework of those Executive Orders in place.  For example, the Order removes certain requirements relating to the form of attestations (i.e., removing the requirement for machine readable format), as well as the directive for centralized validation of software attestations by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA).  Likewise, the associated directive to the Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council to amend the Federal Acquisition Regulation to incorporate those requirements has also been eliminated.  However, the Order appears to leave the core program in place.  Further, it does not appear to modify other cybersecurity Executive Orders beyond those specified.  To that end, although the Order highlights some areas where the Trump administration has taken a different approach than prior administrations, it also signals a more general alignment between administrations on core cybersecurity principles. Continue Reading June 2025 Cybersecurity Developments Under the Trump Administration

On June 30, 2025, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Department of Defense Cyber Crime Center (DC3), and the National Security Agency (NSA) warned U.S. critical infrastructure organizations and other companies that the threat of cyber attacks from Iran-affiliated cyber actors is heightened

Continue Reading U.S. Government Issues Cybersecurity Warning to Critical Infrastructure Operators and Others

This is the third blog in a series of Covington blogs on cybersecurity policies, executive orders (“EOs”), and other actions of the new Trump Administration.  This blog describes key cybersecurity developments that took place in April 2025. 

NIST Publishes Initial Draft of Guidance for High Performance Computing Systems

U.S. National

Continue Reading April 2025 Cybersecurity Developments Under the Trump Administration

On December 24, 2024, New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed into law an amendment to New York General Business Law § 899-aa modifying the state’s data breach notification requirements.  The amended law, which is effective immediately, imposes new requirements businesses must follow when providing notifications following a data breach

Continue Reading New York Adopts Amendment to the State Data Breach Notification Law