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Caleb Skeath

Caleb Skeath advises clients on a broad range of cybersecurity and privacy issues, including cybersecurity incident response, cybersecurity and privacy compliance obligations, internal investigations, regulatory inquiries, and defending against class-action litigation. Caleb holds a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) certification.

Caleb specializes in assisting clients in responding to a wide variety of cybersecurity incidents, ranging from advanced persistent threats to theft or misuse of personal information or attacks utilizing destructive malware. Such assistance may include protecting the response to, and investigation of an incident under the attorney-client privilege, supervising response or investigation activities and interfacing with IT or information security personnel, and advising on engagement with internal stakeholders, vendors, and other third parties to maximize privilege protections, including the negotiation of appropriate contractual terms. Caleb has also advised numerous clients on assessing post-incident notification obligations under applicable state and federal law, developing communications strategies for internal and external stakeholders, and assessing and protecting against potential litigation or regulatory risk following an incident. In addition, he has advised several clients on responding to post-incident regulatory inquiries, including inquiries from the Federal Trade Commission and state Attorneys General.

In addition to advising clients following cybersecurity incidents, Caleb also assists clients with pre-incident cybersecurity compliance and preparation activities. He reviews and drafts cybersecurity policies and procedures on behalf of clients, including drafting incident response plans and advising on training and tabletop exercises for such plans. Caleb also routinely advises clients on compliance with cybersecurity guidance and best practices, including “reasonable” security practices.

Caleb also maintains an active privacy practice, focusing on advising technology, education, financial, and other clients on compliance with generally applicable and sector-specific federal and state privacy laws, including FERPA, FCRA, GLBA, TCPA, and COPPA. He has assisted clients in drafting and reviewing privacy policies and terms of service, designing products and services to comply with applicable privacy laws while maximizing utility and user experience, and drafting and reviewing contracts or other agreements for potential privacy issues.

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Earlier this month, the New York Department of Financial Services (“NYDFS”) announced that it had finalized the Second Amendment to its “first-in-the-nation” cybersecurity regulation, 23 NYCRR Part 500.  This Amendment implements many of the changes that NYDFS originally proposed in prior versions of the Second Amendment released for public comment in November 2022 and June 2023, respectively.  The first version of the Proposed Second Amendment proposed increased cybersecurity governance and board oversight requirements, the expansion of the types of policies and controls companies would be required to implement, the creation of a new class of companies subject to additional requirements, expanded incident reporting requirements, and the introduction of enumerated factors to be considered in enforcement decisions, among others.  The revisions in the second version reflect adjustments rather than substantial changes from the first version.  Compliance periods for the newly finalized requirements in the Second Amendment will be phased over the next two years, as set forth in additional detail below.

The finalized Second Amendment largely adheres to the revisions from the second version of the Proposed Second Amendment but includes a few substantive changes, including those described below:

  • The finalized Amendment removes the previously-proposed requirement that each class A company conduct independent audits of its cybersecurity program “at least annually.”  While the finalized Amendment does require each class A company to conduct such audits, they should occur at a frequency based on its risk assessments.  NYDFS stated that it made this change in response to comments that an annual audit requirement would be overly burdensome and with the understanding that class A companies typically conduct more than one audit annually.  See Section 500.2 (c).
  • The finalized Amendment updates the oversight requirements for the senior governing body of a covered entity with respect to the covered entity’s cybersecurity risk management.  Updates include, among others, a requirement to confirm that the covered entity’s management has allocated sufficient resources to implement and maintain a cybersecurity program.  This requirement was part of the proposed definition of “Chief Information Security Officer.”  NYDFS stated that it moved this requirement to the senior governing bodies in response to comments that CISOs do not typically make enterprise-wide resource allocation decisions, which are instead the responsibility of senior management.  See Section 500.4 (d).
  • The finalized Amendment removes a proposed additional requirement to report certain privileged account compromises to NYDFS.  NYDFS stated that it did so in response to public comments that this proposed requirement “is overbroad and would lead to overreporting.”  However, the finalized Amendment retains previously-proposed changes that will require covered entities to report certain ransomware deployments or extortion payments to NYDFS.  See Section 500.17 (a).

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Continue Reading New York Department of Financial Services Finalizes Second Amendment to Cybersecurity Regulation

Earlier this week, the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) published an update to its rulemaking agenda indicating that it does not plan to approve two proposed cyber rules until at least October 2023 (the agenda’s timeframe is an estimate).  The proposed rules in question address disclosure requirements regarding cybersecurity governance and cybersecurity incidents at publicly…

On May 22 the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) announced a $6 million settlement with Edmodo, an ed tech provider, for violations of the COPPA Rule and Section 5 of the FTC Act.  The FTC described this settlement as the first FTC order that will prohibit an ed tech provider from requiring students to provide more…

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC”) issued a final rule (Order No. 887) directing the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (“NERC”) to develop new or modified Reliability Standards that require internal network security monitoring (“INSM”) within Critical Infrastructure Protection (“CIP”) networked environments.  This Order may be of interest to entities that develop, implement, or maintain hardware or software for operational technologies associated with bulk electric systems (“BES”).

The forthcoming standards will only apply to certain high- and medium-impact BES Cyber Systems.  The final rule also requires NERC to conduct a feasibility study for implementing similar standards across all other types of BES Cyber Systems.  NERC must propose the new or modified standards within 15 months of the effective date of the final rule, which is 60 days after the date of publication in the Federal Register.  

Background

According to the FERC news release, the 2020 global supply chain attack involving the SolarWinds Orion software demonstrated how attackers can “bypass all network perimeter-based security controls traditionally used to identify malicious activity and compromise the networks of public and private organizations.”  Thus, FERC determined that current CIP Reliability Standards focus on prevention of unauthorized access at the electronic security perimeter and that CIP-networked environments are thus vulnerable to attacks that bypass perimeter-based security controls.  The new or modified Reliability Standards (“INSM Standards”) are intended to address this gap by requiring responsible entities to employ INSM in certain BES Cyber Systems.  INSM is a subset of network security monitoring that enables continuing visibility over communications between networked devices that are in the so-called “trust zone,” a term which generally describes a discrete and secure computing environment.  For purposes of the rule, the trust zone is any CIP-networked environment.  In addition to continuous visibility, INSM facilitates the detection of malicious and anomalous network activity to identify and prevent attacks in progress.  Examples provided by FERC of tools that may support INSM include anti-malware, intrusion detection systems, intrusion prevention systems, and firewalls.   …

Continue Reading FERC Orders Development of New Internal Network Security Monitoring Standards

On January 4, 2022, the Federal Trade Commission published a warning to companies and their vendors to take reasonable steps to remediate the Log4j vulnerability (CVE-2021-44228).  The FTC provided a list of recommended remedial actions for companies using the Log4j software.  The FTC’s warning references obligations under the FTC Act and Gramm Leach Bliley Act…

Last week, South Dakota became the 49th U.S. state to enact a data breach notification law with the passage of S.B. 62, which sets forth requirements for notifying state residents, the state attorney general, and major consumer reporting agencies in the event of a breach. The law, which will take effect on July 1, 2018,…