Ted Kobus is National Co-Leader of the Privacy, Security and Social Media Team and focuses his practice in the areas of privacy, data breaches, social media and intellectual property. Prior to joining Baker Hostetler, Ted served as head of the Technology, Media and Intellectual Property and Privacy and Data Security practices at another law firm.

Ted advises clients, trade groups and organizations regarding data security and privacy risk management, breaches, response strategies, litigation and regulatory actions affecting organizations. He has counseled clients involved in significant breaches implicating state and federal laws, international laws and other regulations and requirements, including HITECH, the Massachusetts Data Privacy Law, California privacy laws (including the California Department of Public Health Law), Connecticut Insurance Department regulations, Puerto Rico's Citizen Information on Data Banks Security Act, Mexico's Data Protection Law, Canada's data privacy requirements and PCI/CISP requirements. He has dealt with Offices of Attorneys General, state insurance departments, Office of Civil Rights (OCR)/Health and Human Services (HHS), Secret Service, FBI and local police and forensics professionals as part of their handling of data breaches.

Risk management is a key component of an organization's mitigation plan. From advising clients regarding privacy and security compliance in cloud and virtual environments to the impact of social media on the way an organization conducts business, Ted's services include:

• Breach response workshops
• Review and development of policies and procedures reflective of state breach notification laws, international data security laws, HIPAA, HITECH, COPPA, GLBA and other privacy-related laws and regulations
• Preparation of written information security plans
• Preparation of incident response plans
• Drafting and updating of privacy policies, portal agreements, contracts and customer notices to reflect legal developments in privacy
• Preparation of social media policies
• Educational webinars and other presentations for employees

Ted has handled over a hundred breaches and his representative experience includes:

• Healthcare, educational, banking, financial, technology service providers, hospitality and retail breaches involving state, local, federal and international laws
• Healthcare and financial services breaches involving substantial crisis management and public relations efforts
• Breaches resulting in identity theft
• Breaches involving cloud computing services
• Breaches involving sensitive employment issues
• Multistate breaches involving high-profile law enforcement investigations and overseas criminals using malware
• Breaches involving phishing scams and other social engineering tools
• Breaches and litigation involving PCI DSS compliance

His experience extends to litigation of data breach, privacy, technology, media and intellectual property matters nationally, including litigation and audits and actions by governmental regulators such as state attorneys general, HHS and OCR, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Federal Communications Commission (FCC), state departments of health and insurance and state and professional licensing boards. Ted has a number of arbitrations, non-jury and jury trials and his representative experience includes:

• Defense of clients involved in class action litigation related to technology, privacy and PCI DSS issues
• Defense of clients involved in healthcare invasion of privacy cases
• Defense of clients during investigations by state attorneys general
• Breaches implicating Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and resulting investigations by the Department of Education (DOE)
• Dismissal from a class action litigation involving the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACTA)
•  Defense of technology service providers in enterprise resource planning (ERP) litigation
• Recent verdict in favor of his client in a matter involving computer source code copyright infringement and trade secret claims
• Litigation of trademark cases