Trends Transforming Business

Data & Cybersecurity

Helping you protect data, prepare for and respond to cyber events, and strengthen your organization against evolving threats

Understand. Withstand. Build resilience in a world where cyber risk never stands still.

Increasing geopolitical tensions, threat actors' access to technology, and regulatory scrutiny are making cyber a national security, economic stability, and strategic risk issue that belongs in the boardroom, not just with IT.

Data is often an organization’s most valuable and targeted asset. In the AI era, data integrity and security are even more critical. In a practical sense, this means you need to manage cyber threats at greater scale and speed, comply with complex cyber regulations, and maintain a high state of readiness to recover from operational disruption.

The attack surface is expanding, too, as cloud services, APIs, software as a service, and interconnected supply chains expose organizations beyond their traditional boundaries. Supply chain risk demands particular attention: The systems organizations rely on from third and fourth parties—and the data those systems carry—need to be managed and governed as if they were their own. Human risk also remains a major concern, particularly with the rise of AI-driven phishing, deepfakes, and social engineering attacks, while a shortage of skilled workers is leading to greater reliance on automation and managed services. Adding to the complexity, shifts in the digital landscape are increasing these risks. Frontier AI represents a step-change in both attack and defense capabilities, enabling faster, more sophisticated attacks while also enhancing how threats are detected and dealt with.

No industry or organization is immune to cyberattacks. Our industry experience, combined with our data and cyber capabilities, means we understand how cyber affects your industry. We work with clients across financial services, energy and infrastructure, technology, consumer, healthcare, transport, and other key sectors in the global economy. We understand how threat actors target critical infrastructure and services, how regulators oversee them, and the distinct challenges your organization and industry face.

We are a global, multidisciplinary team of lawyers and risk professionals, and we work with our clients every day to understand and mitigate cyber and data risk.

Given the current landscape, the legal and regulatory obligations governing data and cybersecurity are not a static checklist. They are dynamic, requiring organizations to have governance frameworks that respond not only to changes in the law but also to changes in the threat environment and risk profile. To keep pace with the scale and breadth of cyber improvement and remediation, organizations need to move beyond traditional security approaches and adopt integrated, risk-based strategies—investing in skills, building awareness, and embedding cybersecurity into their strategy and decision-making from the board down.

Opportunities and challenges

Frontier AI and automation can help organizations improve threat detection, response speed, and overall resilience, but in the wrong hands, they enable threat actors to identify and exploit vulnerabilities rapidly and at scale.
Making cybersecurity a board-level issue leads to better governance, more informed decisions, and alignment with business strategy.
Organizations that invest in "whole-of-organization" readiness—not just technical controls—are better positioned to respond to and recover from high-impact incidents.
Getting cybersecurity right takes a multidisciplinary approach across technology, legal, and risk functions. The payoff is an organization that is well-defended against threat actors and can defend its actions from regulatory investigations and litigation when an incident occurs.
We operate in a world where worst case scenarios are plausible. More frequent and advanced threats are putting organizations at increased risk of operational disruption, financial loss, and reputational damage. Cyber readiness requires a "whole-of-organization" effort.
Supply chain risk is intensifying. Organizations need to secure not only their own systems but also their entire ecosystem, including third- and fourth-party providers and systems.
Rapid adoption of AI and digital technologies can outpace the remediation and improvement of technical controls, with resource constraints affecting resilience. Good governance and risk management ensure better choices are made, aligning technical, operational, and strategic priorities.
Changing regulatory environments create additional compliance and operational burdens, with regulators actively engaging organizations to explain their resilience posture. Boards must provide evidence and demonstrate effective cyber governance, risk frameworks, and cyber readiness.

How we can help

In a world of rising threats, tightening regulation, and increasing personal accountability, organizations need more than advice. They need a partner who has been there—in the room, at the table, managing the crisis when it matters most. Ashurst Perkins Coie is that partner.

We know of no other integrated cyber team in the market that combines legal, risk, and technology capabilities in this way. Our multidisciplinary approach helps leadership teams and boards address cybersecurity as an enterprise issue—not merely a technical or legal one. Working as one integrated delivery team, we draw on firsthand experience advising clients through critical cyber incidents, data breaches, ransomware attacks, and major cyber crises in the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, and Europe. This perspective helps us bring practical insight to complex, fast-moving situations.

Our support is pragmatic and end-to-end. We help clients understand complex cyber obligations, strengthen cyber governance, and build sustainable defenses against an evolving threat landscape. We also help clients navigate increasingly complex legal and compliance obligations, translating them into clear, actionable strategies that reflect what regulators and courts now expect.

We support clients across the full cyber life cycle:

Understanding risk and regulation: Helping organizations assess their posture, map obligations across jurisdictions, and ensure governance frameworks respond to changes in both the law and the threat environment.
Improving readiness: Stress-testing preparedness through simulations, maturity assessments, and board-level playbooks, so organizations can respond with confidence.
Managing crises: Providing coordinated, real-time support during incidents, integrating legal, technical, crisis, and communications considerations and ensuring a consistent response across regions while anticipating regulatory scrutiny, litigation risk, and stakeholder expectations.
Delivering long-term recovery and remediation: Advising on post-incident governance reviews, regulatory engagement, ongoing litigations, and class actions and building stronger foundations to withstand the next event.

Our approach helps clients prepare for, respond to, and recover from high-impact cyber events in a rapidly changing environment, with the governance and defensibility regulators now expect.