Minnesota Governor Tim Walz issued an emergency executive order on April 7, 2026, dispatching the Minnesota National Guard after Winona County requested assistance following a cyber attack disrupting its “critical systems and digital services.” The attack occurred on April 6, 2026, and is “significantly impairing the county’s ability to deliver vital emergency and municipal services.”
Robinson & Cole LLP Blogs
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Water Treatment Facility Downed with Ransomware Attack
Critical infrastructure operators at the water treatment plant in Minot, North Dakota, were forced to resort to manual processes when its Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system became inoperable as a result of a March 14, 2026, ransomware attack. The attackers are unidentified, but it comes in the wake of the war in Iran,…
Joint Advisory Warns of Iran Cyber Actors Attacking U.S. Critical Infrastructure
Iran has always been a formidable cyber threat to the United States, but after the war in Iran commenced, the attacks are coming frequently and in full force. According to the Joint Cybersecurity Advisory issued on April 7, 2026, by the FBI, CISA, NSA, EPA, DOE, and Cyber Command, Iranian-based hackers are targeting operational technology…
Vetting AI for Government: California’s Executive Order Sets New Expectations
California Governor Gavin Newsom issued a new executive order aimed at tightening California’s procurement rules for artificial intelligence (AI) vendors and “raising the bar” for companies that want to sell AI tools to the state. The administration says the goal is to ensure contractors meet strong standards and can demonstrate responsible policies that prevent misuse,…
Mandiant M-Trends 2026 Report: Threat Actors Using AI in Attacks
Mandiant recently issued its M-Trends 2026 Report, a must read for all cybersecurity professionals. The report provides several conclusions and insights, including that both nation states and run of the mill financially motivated threat actors are “integrating AI to accelerate the attack lifecycle.” These threat actors are “increasingly relying on large language models (LLMs) as…
North Korean Threat Groups Using AI in Remote Technical Employee Schemes
Microsoft Threat Intelligence issued a report on March 6, 2026, entitled, “AI as tradecraft: How threat actors operationalize AI,” which outlines how threat actors, including those from North Korea, are “operationalizing AI along the cyberattack lifecycle…to bypass safeguards and perform malicious activity.” The threat actors are adopting AI “as operational enablers, embedding AI…
Darktrace Issues Annual Threat Report
Cybersecurity firm Darktrace recently issued its Annual Threat Report, which offered some startling statistics and findings. The Threat Report provides a “comprehensive assessment of the global cyber threat landscape and the trends shaping cyber risk in 2026.”
Findings are summarized below, but we strongly encourage read the whole report.
- Email attacks are getting more sophisticated
…
Using Trademarks to Protect IP from AI
By Daniel Lass
The fight between creators and big tech has mostly been focused on the alleged copyright infringement of using creative works in AI training data. However, trademark law might be the next battleground as creators look for additional ways to protect their work from AI-related misuse. Actor Matthew McConaughey recently received U.S. Registration No. 8,070,191 for…
Scoring Applicants? Your AI Could Be in FCRA Territory
By Roma Patel
The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) is decades old, but a recent artificial intelligence (AI)-related complaint suggests that plaintiffs are testing whether legacy consumer-reporting rules can apply to AI-driven hiring assessments.
In January, a class action complaint was filed in California, Kistler v. Eightfold AI Inc., No. C26-00214 (Cal. Super. Ct. Jan. 20, 2026). Eightfold…
Patentability Implications of the EU AI Act
By Daniel Lass
Novelty is a core requirement for any invention to be patentable. Put simply, your invention generally cannot have been publicly disclosed before the patent application’s effective filing date. In the United States, 35 U.S.C. § 102 includes a one-year grace period for certain public disclosures made before you file—many other jurisdictions do not have this…