Cybersecurity 2019 — The Year In Preview: Cryptocurrency And SEC Enforcement

Editors' Note: This is the fifth in our third annual series examining important trends in data privacy and cybersecurity during the new year. Our previous entries were on emerging threats, state law trends, comparing the GDPR with COPPA, and energy and security. Up next: political advertising.

In our 2018 SEC year in preview post, we called attention to an expected increase in SEC cybersecurity enforcement action. The SEC has certainly lived up to the billing throughout 2018, which was the first full year in existence for the SEC's new Cyber Unit. In particular, the Cyber Unit and the SEC's Enforcement Division focused on three types of enforcement actions: (1) stopping unregistered and/or fraudulent trading of digital assets, including initial coin offerings (ICOs); (2) the safeguarding of customer information by registered entities; and (3) public company disclosures and controls.