FCC Standardizes and Formalizes “Team Telecom” Review
Foreign investment in many entities regulated by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has long been subject to an interagency review process for the consideration of national security, foreign policy, and trade policy issues, referred to as “Team Telecom.” Pursuant to an April 2020 executive order and an October 2020 report and order of the FCC, this process has been formalized and streamlined under the new Committee for the Assessment of Foreign Participation in the United States Telecommunications Services Sector (Committee).
FCC Enforcement Bureau Issues First Privacy Enforcement Order Against a Cable Operator
On November 5, 2015, the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC” or “Commission”) issued its first ever privacy or data security enforcement order against a cable provider, Cox Communications, Inc. (“Cox”). The order adopted a consent decree entered into with the company, fining the company $595,000 for the breach. The order sets out that in August 2014, a hacker used social engineering tactics, or “pretexting,” to impersonate someone from Cox’s information technology department in a phishing scheme to successfully convince a Cox contractor to enter an account ID and password into a fake website which the hackers controlled. Without multi-factor authentication in place for the targeted systems, the hacker and an accomplice were able to use those captured credentials to obtain the personal information and /or Customer Proprietary Network Information (“CPNI”) of 54 current and seven former customers. Cox notified the FBI of the breach, but did not notify the FCC through the Commission’s breach-reporting portal.