On January 18, Doug Austin of CloudNine featured two Ride the Lightning (RTL) blog posts about Paul Manafort and the redaction mishap in his own post. His blog post, “It’s 2019, So it Must Be Time for Another Redaction Flub: eDiscovery Best Practices” is featured in CloudNine’s eDiscovery Daily Blog. CloudNine is a legal intelligence technology company with deep expertise in the analysis, processing, and review of electronically stored information (ESI). Ride the Lightning is an electronic evidence and cybersecurity blog by Sensei’s Sharon Nelson.

Excerpt: I should probably put in a disclaimer that this is not a political post – I would write about this regarding which political party this involved.  It just so happens that the latest high-profile redaction flub happens to be tied to the Russia investigation and Paul Manafort.  Regardless, it leaves me asking the question: when will they ever learn?

As covered on Sharon Nelson’s terrific Ride the Lightning blog (here and here), defense lawyers for Paul Manafort used court papers that were made public last week to say that prosecutors were overblowing a text message exchange cited as proof that Manafort tried to mislead investigators probing Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.  Unfortunately for them, that portion of the filing that had been submitted under seal was improperly redacted in the public version, allowing the text to be lifted from the document with a few keystrokes. Oops.

Read the entire post here.

If you look at the “Hot Buttons” column in the January/February 2019 issue of the ABA’s Law Practice magazine, you will find the article “Revisiting Passwords and Multifactor Authentication” written by Sensei’s Sharon Nelson and John Simek. Law Practice magazine is a bi-monthly publication of the American Bar Association’s Law Practice Division.

Excerpt: It has been years since we talked about passwords in this column. While passwords seem a bit old school, they are still what most people, including lawyers, use to gain access to protected networks and data. As Verizon’s 2018 Data Breach Investigations Report noted, “Eighty-one percent of hacking-related breaches leveraged stolen and/or weak passwords.” Clearly, passwords are not serving law firm security well. Recently, we have seen multi-factor authentication (MFA) adopted more widely, but at a tortoise pace.

Based on the questions we get from audiences at CLES, there is now a fairly burning interest in upping security in law firms – and that’s a very good thing. Let’s start at the beginning with concepts that are sure to be new to some readers.

Fair warning: This is a good time to get a cup of strong coffee.

Read the entire article here.

“The Anatomy of a Data Breach” by Sensei’s Sharon Nelson and John Simek was featured in the January/February 2019 issue of the ABA’s Law Practice magazine. Law Practice magazine is a bi-monthly publication of the American Bar Association’s Law Practice Division.

Excerpt: Hacking can indeed be a passion, proving that you can outfox governments and big league corporations. The thrill of the chase can be addictive – and the addiction is fueled by the monies to be made.
Breaches come in many variants, far too many to cover in a single article. But there is a general flow to a breach. Since we make a living investigating breaches and remediating the vulnerabilities that caused them, let us take you on an anatomical tour of a typical breach, highlighting some of the common elements.

To make the reading more fun, we have offered up “quotes” from the players typically involved in a breach. Many are taken from real-life incidents.

Read the entire article here.