Cyber Security

We have one of the longest-standing privacy and cyber security teams in Europe and have been advising clients since the inception of data protection laws more than 30 years ago.

Linklaters' internal privacy network spans 14 jurisdictions across Asia, the U.S. and Europe, while our wider network of independent privacy specialists covers over 100 countries.

We have frequent contact with the European Commission, the UK Treasury, Home Office and other government departments, the U.S. Department of Financial Services, the U.S. Secret Service, The Federal Bureau of Investigations and the U.S. Department of the Treasury, as well as data protection regulators around the world. These relationships mean that should an incident occur, we have the  connections in place to support our clients as required.

Clients benefit from our deep experience of advising on:

• Some of the most serious hacking and data breach crises in the last decade.
• Effective cyber crisis preparedness - through training, incident response planning, and risk management strategies.
• Governance and resilience arrangements - helping clients review and put appropriate governance structures in place.

Crisis Response

The right legal adviser can be pivotal to effectively managing and containing issues like cyber incidents and thinking ahead before a crisis hits: this is as much about prevention as cure.

We have assisted clients with investigations surrounding the circumstances of a hack or serious cyber incident in which our swift intervention and analysis of the facts meant that there was no need to notify either their customers or regulators. As a result, these instances remain out of the public domain. We worked closely with the client teams to reach a final resolution that didn’t damage their reputation and avoided any form of litigation.

We are also experienced in situations where both regulators and customers have had to be notified of a breach or incident. In these cases, we have provided full support and advice on who to tell about the breach and when. This ensured that information become public knowledge only when absolutely necessary, in a manner that ensured the story was carefully and consistently messaged.

In the event of a potential breach, our team is able to:

• Act as the core custodian of the facts (typically under legal privilege)
• Ensure the right information is available to decision makers, including valuable cyber threat intelligence before an incident occurs
• Ensure an accurate and consistent narrative is provided throughout by PR and communications representatives
• Support and assist with any internal investigations
• Advise on securing and recovering data, including by unorthodox means
• Provide necessary legal advice as to the board and management’s reporting responsibilities with an eye to collateral impacts (for example in updating markets)
• Liaise with relevant regulators and law enforcement officials across multiple jurisdictions
• Advise on dealing with potential claims

Prepare and Recover

Our team can also assist with putting in place governance and training to help reduce the impact of cyber incidents by:

• Advising on effective incident response planning and testing, based on our experience in major incidents
• Delivering board level scenario training and wider organisational training
• Assisting with effective vendor risk management including designing procurement and audit processes
• Advising on wider privacy compliance issues