NEW YORK (September 9, 2025) – Complementing strong cybersecurity programs, legal safe harbor laws encourage firms to adopt cybersecurity frameworks while offering them a potential shield against punitive damages in the aftermath of a data breach, according to RIMS Legislative Review: A 2025 Cybersecurity Legal Safe Harbor Overview.
Authored by RIMS Public Policy Committee members Katherine J. Henry and Harold Weston with the support of Bradley LLP Associate Attorney Anna Hamel, the new RIMS report provides a general overview of expected cybersecurity measures that organizations must take to satisfy safe harbor requirements. The report dives deeper into those requirements in six U.S. states, as well as briefly reviewing recently adopted Federal Communications Commission regulation.
“Cyberbreaches are bound to happen, so understanding and leveraging safe harbor laws can provide an additional layer of protection,” the report notes “These regulatory guidelines can provide an invaluable guide for organizations to confidently enter into new markets across the United States while, simultaneously, building a stronger, more robust cybersecurity defense.”
Katherine J. Henry is partner and chair of the policyholder insurance coverage practice at Bradley LLP. Harold Weston is a clinical associate professor and WSIA Distinguished Chair in Risk Management & Insurance at Georgia State University’s Maurice R. Greenberg School of Risk Science.
RIMS Legislative Review: A 2025 Cybersecurity Legal Safe Harbor Overview report is exclusively available to RIMS members for the first 30 days and then will be available to the greater risk community following that period. To download the report, visit RIMS Risk Knowledge library at www.RIMS.org/RiskKnowledge. To learn more about RIMS Advocacy efforts, visit www.RIMS.org/advocacy.
RIMS Public Policy Committee
The RIMS Public Policy Committee promotes and supports risk management by analyzing legislative, regulatory, and legal issues; recommending policy and viewpoints for RIMS; providing sound risk management responses to these issues and educating members on how these issues will affect their industry and/or profession. To learn more about RIMS advocacy efforts, visit RIMS Advocacy.
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About RIMS
RIMS, the risk management society®️, empowers risk professionals to make the world safer, more secure, and more sustainable. Through networking, professional development, certification, advocacy, and research, RIMS and its 80 chapters serves more than 200,000 risk practitioners and business leaders from over 75 countries. Founded in 1950, the Society publishes the award-winning Risk Management Magazine and produces RISKWORLD®️, the largest annual gathering of global risk professionals. RIMS embraces diversity, equity and inclusion and welcomes all risk professionals to connect and learn, explore the online Risk Knowledge library, tune into the RIMScast podcast series, and engage with the RIMS Community on the Society’s social medial channels. To learn more, visit https://www.RIMS.org.
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