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Financial Services Law Insights and Observations

NYDFS updates cybersecurity fraud alert

State Issues NYDFS Privacy/Cyber Risk & Data Security State Regulators Data Breach 23 NYCRR Part 500 Covid-19 Bank Regulatory

State Issues

On March 30, NYDFS issued an updated cybersecurity fraud alert that warns of other techniques used in a widespread cybercrime campaign targeting public-facing websites. As previously covered in InfoBytes, the update stems from NYDFS’ February 16 cybersecurity fraud alert sent to regulated entities, which described a “widespread cybercrime campaign” designed to steal nonpublic private consumer information (NPI) from public-facing websites and use the stolen NPI to fraudulently apply for pandemic and unemployment benefits. In addition to the techniques previously identified, NYDFS alerts regulated entities of the following additional hacking methods: (i) using web-debugging tools to steal unredacted, plaintext NPI while in transit from the data vendor to the company; and (ii) credential stuffing to gain access to insurance agent accounts and using those agent accounts to steal consumer NPI. To prevent sensitive data from being stolen from public-facing websites, NYDFS advises financial organizations to circumvent displaying prefilled NPI, even in redacted form, and to guarantee that all portals are being guarded by the “robust access controls required by [NYDFS]’s cybersecurity regulation.” The alert also outlines remediation steps that financial institutions should execute to guarantee basic security.