When a cybersecurity incident strikes, affected parties need a swift and strong response to manage their situation and minimize damage. As chair of Thompson Coburn's cybersecurity practice, Melissa Ventrone leads teams of first responders, including lawyers and forensic investigators, in jumping head-on into a crisis. Melissa and her team work around the clock to control a breach situation and manage any public or regulatory fallout. When not in urgent response mode, Melissa represents her clients in cybersecurity litigation and proactively managing data privacy and security risks.

Breach response
Melissa has led cybersecurity incident response teams in connection with small breaches impacting a few hundred people to larger breaches impacting millions on behalf of merchants, financial institutions, medical providers and educational institutions. Melissa and her team work with clients to preserve evidence, determine a breach's scope, document the response and craft communications that both meet legal requirements and protect a company's brand. She also advises on establishing incident call centers and staff training, in addition to formulating other methods to protect impacted individuals from potentially negative outcomes.

Cybersecurity litigation
Melissa has attained considerable success in defending companies facing data security and privacy litigation, including class actions. She represents numerous clients in litigation and arbitration, including disputes related to privacy, invasion of privacy, contracts, consumer fraud, statutory claims and other matters. She has litigated cases of first impression establishing favorable law, including obtaining summary judgment in a class action case alleging damages from the theft of a hard drive.

Cybersecurity risk management
Melissa advises clients on compliance with state, federal and international laws and regulations. She helps companies ensure that policies, procedures and cyber crisis response plans are sufficient. Melissa runs breach simulation exercises, which are very useful tools for training, testing and enhancing a company's response time in a breach situation. When vulnerabilities are found, Melissa works with management teams, boards of directors, vendors, outside consultants and other third parties to build and execute risk-reducing action plans.