In an innovative initiative in the battle against the Coronavirus, the newly-formed Open COVID Coalition (the “Coalition”) launched the Open COVID Pledge (the “Pledge”), a framework for organizations to contribute intellectual property to the fight against COVID-19. Pursuant to the Pledge, rightsholders can openly license intellectual property to facilitate the development of tools and technologies to counter the COVID pandemic. These would include the manufacturing of medical equipment and testing kits, as well as the development of software, AI and biotech solutions to contain and end the virus. Many major technology companies and other organizations have signed on to the…

In early February 2020, before most of us were truly aware of the implications of COVID-19, a well-respected IT consulting group predicted a $4.3 trillion global spend on information technology in 2020. Drivers of the projected activity included cybersecurity, outdated infrastructure, mobile accessibility needs, cloud and SaaS transitions, and on-premises technology requirements.  In late 2019, another well-respected consulting group had predicted that, in 2020, “[t]here will be increasing opportunities for technology vendors and service providers to grow their businesses, and for technology buyers to innovate and upgrade their infrastructure, software, and services.” In fact, as 2020 began, many…

An interesting New York Times article last week posited that governments’ use of digital surveillance techniques for the COVID-19 response – such as the tracking of geolocation to gauge quarantine restrictions – would lead to more pervasive digital tracking in the future. On a related note, there have been reports of an increased use of facial recognition technologies as governments use digital tools to respond to the outbreak. These developments bring to mind some interesting questions: In the future, given our collective experience with this invisible foe, will there be a move away from contact-based security and access control systems…

With the spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), many organizations are requiring or permitting employees to work remotely.  This post is intended to remind employers and employees that in the haste to implement widespread work-from-home strategies, data security concerns cannot be forgotten. Employers and employees alike should remain vigilant of increased cybersecurity threats, some of which specifically target remote access strategies.  Unfortunately, as noted in a prior blog post, cybercriminals will not be curtailing their efforts to access valuable data during the outbreak, and in fact, will likely take advantage of some of the confusion and communication issues that…

As part of the response to the outbreak of COVID-19, many organizations are working on contingency and business continuity plans that include an all-employee “work-from-home” scenario.  If it becomes necessary to implement such a plan, all employees of the organization will access the organization’s networks and systems remotely. Unfortunately, many organizations that are testing these plans are discovering that that their remote access technologies may not be able to handle, without significant degradation in performance, the volume of activity this will generate.  Indeed, given the complex host of business applications and collaboration tools that many businesses employ, many entities may…