On April 19, 2023, the New York Attorney General (AG) published "Protecting Consumer's Personal Information: Tips for Businesses to Keep Data Safe and Secure," outlining data security best practices based on the AG's experiences with investigating and prosecuting businesses following data breaches.
The guide offers a range of recommendations that may help
companies avoid data breaches (as well as regulatory crosshairs).
These do not constitute legal requirements, but rather the AG
sharing best practices, similar to last year's guidance on preventing credential stuffing attacks. The
guide organizes the recommendations into the following nine
categories:
- Maintain controls for secure
authentication – Multifactor authentication,
especially for remote access is advised, along with use of complex
passwords.
- Encrypt sensitive customer
information – Avoid storing sensitive
information in plain text. Make use of controls with encryption and
effective key management.
- Ensure service provider use reasonable security
measures – Factor data security practices into
your service provider selection process, with security requirements
baked into contracts in most cases.
- Know where you keep consumer
information – Maintaining an inventory of
assets is crucial for safeguarding customer information and running
effective cybersecurity testing.
- Guard against data leakage in web
applications – Web applications should protect
most sensitive data in transmission with "masking"
measures such as using the last four digits of credit card
numbers.
- Protect customer accounts impacted in data security
incidents – Remediation efforts should include
blocking attacker access and resetting passwords, and, when
necessary, notification to affected consumers.
- Delete or disable unnecessary
accounts – Old, unmonitored accounts used by
former employees or former vendors may contain frequently used
credentials that could be used to access sensitive
information.
- Guard against automated attacks
– Attacks involving repeated attempts to log in to
online accounts using usernames and passwords stolen from other
online services, known as "credential stuffing," are a
popular form of cyberattack for which data security programs should
account.
- Provide clear and accurate notice to consumers – Accurately convey information after a cyberattack. Efforts to downplay the scope or severity of a cyberattack could lead to misleading statements that may violate New York law.
The New York AG has stepped up enforcement against companies over alleged failures in cybersecurity, such as last year's $4.5 million settlement with EyeMed, and $1.5 million multi-state settlement against Carnival Cruise Line, both of which are referenced in the guide (see here for more details on these cases). With around 4,000 data breach notifications received by the AG's office in 2022, the spotlight on data security controls shows no signs of dimming and continues to become more prescriptive over time.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.