NHS Vendor to Pay $3.8 Million Fine in U.K. Ransomware Attack

NHS vendor Advanced will pay just over £3 million ($3.8 million) in fines for not implementing basic security measures before it suffered a ransomware attack in 2022, the U.K.’s data protection regulator has confirmed. The ICO said that Advanced “broke data protection law” by not fully rolling out multi-factor authentication prior to its breach, which allowed hackers to break in with stolen credentials and steal the personal information of tens of thousands of people across the United Kingdom.

Britain Fines OnlyFans $1.4 Million for Failures Over Age Checks

Britain's media and telecommunications regulator, Ofcom, fined OnlyFans, an adults-only website and social media platform, 1.05 million pounds ($1.4 million) over failures to correctly disclose information related to measures to check age. OnlyFans' operator, Fenix International Limited, had failed to provide accurate information over how it was implementing age checks and how effective OnlyFans' third-party facial estimation technology was, the watchdog said.

Judge Allows Media Organizations' Copyright Suit Against OpenAI to Proceed

A federal judge has ruled that The New York Times and other newspapers can proceed with a copyright lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft seeking to end the practice of using their stories to train artificial intelligence chatbots. U.S. District Judge Sidney Stein of New York dismissed some of the claims made by media organizations but allowed the bulk of the case to continue, possibly to a jury trial.

X Sues Indian Government for Allegedly Illegally Blocking Content

X, the social media company owned by billionaire Elon Musk, sued the Indian government, accusing it of illegally blocking content on the platform. The lawsuit alleges that the Indian government created a “censorship portal” last year, enabling government agencies, state authorities and tens of thousands of local police officers to issue takedown orders en masse, violating India’s constitution and the Information Technology Act.

SEC's Crypto Task Force Studies Applicability of Securities Laws

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's crypto task force held its first public meeting with experts, focusing on how securities laws might apply to digital assets as the Trump administration looks to overhaul cryptocurrency regulations. Among the participants of the roundtable were John Reed Stark, former chief of the SEC's Office of Internet Enforcement, Miles Jennings, the general counsel for Andreessen Horowitz's crypto arm, a16z, and former SEC Commissioner Troy Paredes.

German Court Rules Against Apple in Antitrust Case

Apple lost its challenge at Germany's top civil court against its classification as a significant market power, a label which gives antitrust regulators more scope and flexibility to scrutinize its business practices. Judges at the Federal Court of Justice backed the German cartel office's 2023 designation of Apple as a “company of paramount cross-market significance for competition.”

British Surveillance Court Holds Hearing on Apple's 'Back Door'

A British surveillance court held a day-long closed-door hearing on Apple’s bid to block an order that would make it build spying capability into its most secure system for storing customers’ electronic content. Judges on Britain’s Investigatory Powers Tribunal heard from lawyers for Apple and for the government Home Office, without admitting or hearing from those representing digital rights groups and a coalition of media companies who had asked that the proceedings be opened to the public.

Federal Authorities Warn of Ransomware Attacks on Gmail, Outlook Users

Federal authorities are warning users of Gmail, Outlook, and other popular email services about dangerous ransomware linked to a group of developers who have breached hundreds of victims' data, including people in the medical, education, legal, insurance, tech, and manufacturing fields. The ransomware variant is called "Medusa," it was first identified in June 2021, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and FBI announced on March 12.

British, U.S. Officials Discuss Concerns About UK's Moves Against Encryption

British officials held private talks with their U.S. counterparts to resolve concerns that UK is trying to force Apple to build a backdoor into Americans' encrypted data, Bloomberg News reported, citing people familiar with the matter. The report about private discussions comes after Apple removed its most-advanced security encryption for cloud data, known as Advanced Data Protection, in Britain last month.

New York State Sues Allstate for Failing to Report Data Breach

New York state sued Allstate, accusing the insurer's National General unit of failing to report a data breach that exposed drivers' license numbers, and not developing reasonable safeguards to protect policyholders' private information. The lawsuit by New York Attorney General Letitia James was filed in a state court in Manhattan, and seeks civil fines.

Trump's Justice Department Reiterates Demand to Break Up Google

In a sign that President Trump is following the Biden administration’s lead in reining in Google, the Justice Department reiterated its demand that a court break up the search giant. The request followed a landmark ruling last year by Judge Amit P. Mehta of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia that found Google had illegally maintained a monopoly in online search by paying web browsers and smartphone manufacturers to feature its search engine.

Musk Blames 'Massive Cyberattack' from Ukraine for Outages at X

Social media platform X suffered multiple service outages due to what its owner, billionaire Elon Musk, called a "massive cyberattack" that he said possibly originated from Ukraine. According to Downdetector, an online tracker of service outages, thousands of users reported outages Monday morning on the social media site bought by Musk in 2022 for $44 billion.

Cybersecurity Experts Targeting Russian, Chinese Hackers Ousted

Cybersecurity experts who worked to secure U.S. government computers from Russian and Chinese hackers have been ousted from their roles following pressure from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, according to two people familiar with the matter. More than 200 people, split roughly between contractors and employees, were let go beginning in February from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA, amid sweeping staff reductions across the federal government, said the two people, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to share information with the media. Some of the workers had decades of experience, they said.

News Corp. Threatens Brave in Copyright Case, Prompting Suit

News Corp. has been sued by Google search engine rival Brave Software, which seeks to forestall a lawsuit by Rupert Murdoch's company for when readers are directed to copyrighted articles from the Wall Street Journal and New York Post. In a complaint filed in San Francisco federal court, Brave said News Corp. sent a cease-and-desist letter threatening litigation and demanding compensation for the alleged misappropriation of copyrighted articles by "scraping" its websites and indexing their content.

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The GigaLaw Firm helps companies of all sizes protect their brands online, using domain name dispute policies – such as the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) – and other legal tools available to copyright and trademark owners on the Internet.