Colleges and universities should assess their cybersecurity compliance posture and incident response readiness and harden their networks as soon as possible in light of elevated threats.
Since June 2025, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has cautioned that Iranian government-affiliated actors routinely target U.S. networks and internet-connected devices. The war in Iran and recent Iranian
On March 20, 2026, the White House unveiled its National Policy Framework for Artificial Intelligence, providing a blueprint on legislative recommendations and urging Congress to act. It recommends that Congress create a unified federal standard to reduce the regulatory friction of competing state AI regimes, promote AI innovation, and develop an AI-ready workforce, while ensuring the protection of children, consumers, and intellectual property rights.
Continue Reading White House Releases AI Legislative Recommendations—Congress Has the Blueprint, but Questions Remain
Data Privacy Day offers a natural checkpoint to take stock of a fast‑moving legal landscape. As of January 1, 2026, several significant U.S. state privacy laws and regulatory updates are now live, with additional U.S. and global milestones queued up throughout 2026. Below we summarize important changes already in effect and highlight issues to monitor as the year unfolds.
Continue Reading Data Privacy Day 2026: What Changed on Jan. 1 — And What to Watch NextWith Halloween lurking around the corner and as National Cybersecurity Awareness Month comes to a close, the McGuireWoods Data Privacy & Cybersecurity Practice Group reminds you to not wait to be spooked by a cybersecurity incident or haunted by the task of maintaining your cybersecurity program.
Today’s threat landscape is rapidly changing and accelerated evermore by the capabilities of AI and automation on both sides of the cyber battlefield. Organizations that stay ahead are using established cybersecurity frameworks to provide a strong architecture on which to continuously evolve their cybersecurity program and testing their response to the latest threats through tabletop exercises. By leveraging modern technologies, such as AI-enabled detection, zero trust architectures, automated configuration management, and secure-by-design engineering, leading organizations are making cybersecurity not just stronger, but measurably faster, leaner, and more resilient.
Continue Reading Halloween Reminder – Don’t Get Haunted by HacksAs 2022 draws to a close, it is important to keep in mind that key state-level regulations on consumer and employee data privacy will become effective as soon as 2023 begins. Data security measures, personal data processing activities and privacy policies of businesses covered by the regulations are now proscribed specific standards and requirements in
On March 2, 2021, Governor Northam signed into law Virginia’s own Consumer Data Protection Act (“Virginia CDPA” or the “Act”), a bill that brings together concepts from the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) as well as the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA). It is the first of its kind legislation on the East Coast. The law will go into effect on January 1, 2023.
The drafters of the Virginia CDPA appear to have benefited from observing the pitfalls and problems that arose in the development and implementation of both GDPR and CCPA. The Virginia bill deftly avoids several of those by incorporating narrower, more tailored definitions that clearly exclude categories of data and businesses over which there was (and continues to be) some confusion with respect to both the EU/UK and California compliance regimes. It also adopts, in concept, the framework of the GDPR, and even some of its language. Like GDPR, it characterizes the party who initially collects and controls personal data as the “controller” and obligates that party to be a good steward of the data, through transparency with the consumer, accountability for sharing the data with third parties (“processors”), and a duty to implement appropriate data security to safeguard the data. It will be enforced by the Virginia Attorney General. Notably, there is no private right of action under the Act.Continue Reading Virginia’s New Consumer Data Protection Act (CDPA)
Data privacy is a top concern for many in-house legal professionals – and for good reason – data privacy and cybersecurity legal requirements are complex and continually evolving. Data Privacy Day is a great day to start addressing your organization’s data privacy and cybersecurity needs.
On Data Privacy Day 2021, here is what is top of mind for some of our Data Privacy & Security Team members:
Continue Reading Data Privacy Day 2021: Privacy and Cybersecurity Are On Our Minds, Too
There’s tension in this relationship. Marketing and the legal department know they need each other, but that doesn’t mean they always understand each other.
Marketers are out-of-the-box thinkers whose ideas engage customers and drive company revenue. Lawyers help the business stay in business by avoiding unnecessary risk, which sometimes requires them to say “no” to the marketing team’s ideas. It’s no wonder the departments are often frenemies, supporting the same organizational goals, but sometimes pushing back on each other.
In the interests of peace, love and understanding, McGuireWoods’ IP and privacy teams present “Frenemies,” a series of short videos covering legal considerations in advertising. We hope these episodes help marketing and legal departments understand each other, work together, issue-spot, and maybe go from being frenemies to friends. Registration is not required and after release, each season will be available for binge watching from your office or your couch.Continue Reading Frenemies Video Series – Season 1: Marketers and Lawyers Learn to Speak the Same Language
On July 16, 2020, Blackbaud, a U.S. based cloud computing provider and one of the world’s largest providers of education administration, fundraising, and financial management software, notified users of its services that it had suffered a ransomware attack in May 2020 in relation to personal data stored on their servers. Numerous colleges, universities, foundations, and other non-profits across the U.K., U.S. and Canada were affected.
Blackbaud’s handling of the attack has raised some questions. Blackbaud has confirmed in a statement on its website that they paid the cyber-criminal’s ransom demand in return for confirmation that the stolen data had been destroyed. Paying ransom demands is not unlawful, but it goes against the official advice issued by many law enforcement agencies, including the FBI. In addition, Blackbaud has faced criticism for taking many weeks to inform its customers of the breach.Continue Reading Blackbaud Data Breach: Do You Need to Notify Affected Individuals or EU Data Protection Authorities?
In its long awaited judgment in the Schrems II case, the ECJ has this morning invalidated the EU-US Privacy Shield citing the “limitations on the protection of personal data arising from the domestic law of the United States on the access and use by US public authorities” in respect of personal data transferred from the European Union to the United States on the basis that such limitations do not provide the protections ensured under EU law. The ECJ’s concerns centered around certain US surveillance programs which are not limited to what is strictly necessary and EU data subjects not having effective rights of enforcement against US authorities under US laws.
Continue Reading ECJ Invalidates the EU-US Privacy Shield! How Safe is it to Use SCCs for Data Transfers from the EU to the US?