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10 J. Bus. & Tech. L. Proxy 1 (2016)

handle is hein.journals/jbtprxy10 and id is 1 raw text is: 











KAYLIE GIOIOSO'


Small Companies, Big Breaches: Why Current Data

Protection Laws Fail American Consumers in Cases

of  Third-Party Hacking








THE  NUMBER  OF  DATA BREACHES  resulting in stolen consumer identities continues
to soar in the United States as businesses increase their online presences. Small
businesses have been  particularly and disproportionately impacted.2 Hackers are
increasingly attacking smaller vendors with weak security systems as entry points
into the  systems of large corporations, a phenomenon known as third-party
hacking.  Current laws, which require only that reasonable security measures in
light of a company's size, offer little consumer protection from these third-party
breaches.' Lawmakers could better serve American consumers  by deferring to state
law regimes. Individual states should pass laws that focus on comprehensive data
security and give states' attorney generals broad enforcement power. Part I of this
comment   discusses the general background  surrounding  data breaches, part II
discusses the  current legal landscape, part  III analyzes the  efficacy of the
reasonableness standard, and finally, part IV suggests ways in which data breach
laws can be improved upon moving  forward.






© 2016 Kaylie Gioioso
   *  J.D., University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law, 2016; B.B.A. in Economics, summa
cum laude, Loyola University Maryland, 2012. I would like to thank the members of the Journal of Business &
Technology Law for their very helpful feedback in writing this comment. I dedicate this comment to my
parents, Holly and Wayne Gioioso, Jr., and my siblings, Kara, Lily, and Bennett, for all of their love and
support. I also dedicate this comment to Alex Stern for making law school the best three years of my life!
   1. See infra Section I.A.
   2. See infra Section I.B.
   3. See infra Section I.D.
   4. See infra Section II.A.
   5. See infra Section IV.


JOURNAL   OF BUSINESS  & TECHNOLOGY LAW PROXY

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