General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

Among other requirements, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) imposes rigid compliance requirements on companies in the event of cyber attacks: Any data protection breach must now be notified to the data protection supervisory authority not later than within 72 hours. If this time limit is exceeded or no notification is effected, administrative fines of millions of euros may be imposed. Operators of critical infrastructures (i.e. entities that are vital for the functioning of the community) must additionally comply with the requirements of the IT Security Act and, in this regard, in particular take appropriate organisational and technical safeguards to avoid any interference with the functioning of their information technology systems and furnish proof of compliance with these standards to the Federal Office for Information Security (Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik; BSI) every two years.