The Week's Five Great Reads

The Buck Stops Here: CEOs Held Most Accountable by Directors for Major Data Breaches | Scott Lyon According to a recent joint survey of nearly 200 directors of public companies by the New York Stock Exchange and Veracode, CEOs are most likely to be held responsible in the event of a major data breach, ahead of the chief information officer (CIO), chief information security officer (CISO), and board members themselves. This trend appears to recognize the critical role of top level management in ensuring that cyber security is made an enterprise-wide priority and that sufficient resources are being allocated to address potential vulnerabilities before a breach occurs. >Click here for more on data breach accountability.

The Many Blessings of Information Governance | Alejandra Perez and Kelli Clark By now, most companies have figured out what the giants of Silicon Valley have known for more than a decade: the information they control is one of their most valuable assets. But what many have been slower to realize is that if not properly managed, that same information can also be a source of enormous risk. To manage that risk—and to maximize the value of their data—a growing number of companies are beginning to focus on information governance. >Click here for more on information governance blessings.

New Report Reveals Growing Use of Cloud Services in Government | Skyhigh Networks Skyhigh Networks recently released its new “Cloud Adoption & Risk in the Government Report.” The Q1 2015 report reveals that shadow IT is prevalent in government agencies – the average public sector organization uses 742 cloud services, which is about 10-20 times more than IT departments expect. Despite the security initiatives in place – such as FedRAMP, FISMA, and FITARA – many government employees are unaware of agency rules and regulations or simply ignore them and use cloud services that drive collaboration and productivity. Click here for direct access to the complete report.

Embracing the Power of the Cloud in eDiscovery | Stu Van Dusen Cloud infrastructures provide an unrivalled opportunity to control eDiscovery costs without sacrificing quality, functionality, or security. Firms without large litigation support departments can instantly increase their discovery and review capacities with on demand/SaaS eDiscovery – often allowing them to take on cases they were previously unable to. >Click here for more on eDiscovery in the cloud.

Web App Developers Putting Millions at Risk | Jai Vijayan A troubling failure by many web application developers to properly secure how their apps connect to mobile backend-as-a-service systems like Facebook’s Parse and Amazon’s AWS could be leaving sensitive information on millions of Internet users vulnerable to compromise. Researchers at Germany’s LOEWE Center for Advanced Security Research Darmstadt (CASED) recently issued an alert on the issue, claiming they had found a stunning 56 million sets of unprotected data in cloud databases like Parse and AWS. >Click here for more on unprotected back-end databases in the cloud.

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Lagniappe

Legal Technology Professionals Institute | @LegalTechPI The Legal Technology Professionals Institute is a non-profit trade association created for and run by Legal Technology professionals to represent all participants in the legal technology industry, including providers and consumers of technology products and services, to develop and maintain operational and ethical standards, best practices, guidelines, resources, and forums under a non-profit umbrella. >Click here to learn more about the LPTI.

Treatment of Social Media Accounts in Bankruptcy | Shmuel Vasser and Negisa Balluku In today’s digital marketplace, understanding how the law applies to virtual assets is becoming as important as understanding how it applies to the brick-and-mortar world. According to studies conducted by the Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, in 2014, 93 percent of the Inc. 500—the fastest-growing private U.S. companies, as compiled by Inc. Magazine—used at least one social media platform. Similarly, of the Fortune 500 companies in 2014, 83 percent had corporate Twitter accounts and 80 percent had Facebook accounts, among several social media tools. >Click here for more on virtual assets and the law.

Gartner Launches Integrated GRC Research Program | John Wheeler In conjunction with the start of the 2015 U.S. Security & Risk Management Summit in Washington, DC, Gartner launched its integrated “OneGRC” research program. This year, I will be leading a select group of Gartner research analysts in evaluating the Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC) market and its related segments. The result of our efforts will be a slate of research reports (see below) that will publish over the next 12 months. >Click here for more on the "OneGRC" program.

The Masters Conference | @MastersConf Masters Conference is a boutique educational forum where a select group of speakers, vendors and attendees convene to engage in a proactive collaboration on current challenges in the legal space. As a global legal conference, Masters Conference takes the lead to differentiate itself while consistently raising the bar as the most well-respected conference in the legal technology industry. >Click here to learn more about the Masters Conference.

You Don’t Want Discovery Overdraft Charges | Josh Gilliland Discovery deadlines matter. Wells Fargo learned that the hard way with producing a relevant email 8 months after the close of discovery. Given the nature of the relevancy to the lawsuit, limited additional discovery was reopened. Here is the short overview of the case: Plaintiff’s asked Wells Fargo if the other Defendants (now dismissed) were a legitimate business engaged in securities sales. The bank said yes and the Plaintiff transferred $80,000 to the Defendant’s bank account in order to purchase securities that would yield a return of $280,000. >Click here for more on discovery overdrafts.