Third-Party Liability & Vendor Breach Lawyers
Your data was taken from a company you never dealt with. Or your company is being blamed for a breach that started in a vendor’s system.
We trace the breach to the control that failed, identify the duties that applied and pursue or defend the claim on that record.
Breaches travel through vendors. Liability should follow the failure.
Modern attacks rarely hit the victim directly. They go through a login integration, a cloud provider, a payroll processor or a registry.
The people harmed often have no contract with the company that failed. Companies, in turn, inherit breaches from vendors they chose.
Both sides need the same thing: a precise account of which control failed and what duty applied to it.
Even governments and the largest platforms are being breached.
Two official notices from 2026 and the standards against which third-party security is measured.
The Five Eyes statement puts it plainly: “Cyber risk can no longer be treated as a purely technical issue. This is a core business risk and leadership responsibility.” Sources: Government of Liechtenstein, initial findings on the VwbP attack (Aug. 3, 2026); FBI Cyber Alert, October 31, 2026; NSA, Five Eyes Cyber Security Agencies Statement (June 22, 2026); N.Y. General Business Law § 899-bb.
For the exposed and for the accused.
Claims against vendors and outsourcers
Negligence, contract and statutory claims against the provider whose control failed, including where the victim was never its customer.
Identity provider and integration failures
Claims arising from single sign-on, legacy login integrations and identity registrations that accepted an attacker.
Group and family office claims
Coordinated claims for families, funds and businesses exposed through the same vendor breach.
Breach defense for companies
Defense of companies alleged to be the source of a breach, with independent forensics to test the allegation.
Vendor contract and indemnity disputes
Enforcement of security warranties, indemnities and notice obligations in vendor agreements.
Standards and duty analysis
Measurement against the NIST Cybersecurity Framework, New York’s SHIELD Act and the FTC Safeguards Rule.
How a third-party breach claim is built.
Attribution first. Then duty. Then the claim or the defense.
Attribution
Forensic review establishes the entry point and the control that failed.
Duty
Which statutes, standards and contracts applied to that control, and to whom the duty ran.
Preservation and records
Demands to every vendor in the chain. Subpoenas where cooperation stops.
Demand or response
A demand built on the record, or a defense that tests the claimant’s attribution.
Litigation or arbitration
Filed where the facts and agreements allow. Expert and forensic testimony prepared.
Investigators and lawyers, under one roof.
Retired federal law enforcement.
Former federal investigators and analysts who spent their careers on cyber and financial crime. They handle the forensics, the tracing and the contact with current law enforcement.
Arbitrating cybercrime disputes since 2019.
Counsel in more than 130 arbitrations before AAA, JAMS and NAM, most arising from cybercrime and account takeovers. We try these cases on the evidence.
If a vendor’s breach reached you, or your company is being blamed.
Notice letters and public statements are being drafted right now, by someone else.
- Preserve the breach notice, every communication and your own logs
- Identify every vendor and integration that touched the affected data
- Review vendor contracts for security warranties and indemnities
- Calendar regulatory notice deadlines that may already be running
- Engage counsel before responding to claimants or regulators
- Accept a vendor’s breach narrative without independent review
- Issue public statements about cause before attribution
- Let the vendor’s forensic firm be the only one examining the evidence
- Sign releases or accept credit monitoring in place of a claim without advice
- Assume no claim exists because there was no contract
From the firm’s writing.
AI Cyberattacks and Asset Protection Trusts: Who Bears the Loss?
How fiduciary duties allocate cyber risk after the Five Eyes warning.
Read the articleCyber Breach Lawyer: Board Risks After June 22, 2026
What directors and officers must now assume about cyber risk.
Read the articleNew York SHIELD Act: Is Your Cybersecurity Reasonable?
The safeguards New York expects from any business holding its residents’ data.
Read the articleFrequently asked.
Potentially. New York recognizes duties that run to foreseeable victims of a defendant’s conduct, and statutes like the SHIELD Act impose safeguards regardless of contract.
The claim depends on proving that the company’s control failed and that the failure reached you.
Two tracks. Defend the claim with independent forensics on where the breach occurred. Pursue the vendor under its contract and the law.
Notice deadlines run on both tracks.
Reasonable safeguards under New York’s SHIELD Act, the FTC Safeguards Rule for financial institutions, DFS Part 500 for licensed companies, and the NIST Cybersecurity Framework as the common benchmark.
Monitoring is what breached companies offer. It is not a measure of your loss. Actual theft, fraud and expenses can support a claim.
Forensic review of the affected systems, matched to vendor logs and public notices. Preservation demands early keep that evidence available.
Yes. Companies retain us when they are alleged to be the source of a breach, or when a board needs an independent review of a vendor incident.
Other areas of the practice.
Every page of the cybercrime practice, from the first hour of an incident to the final award. Back to the overview.
Exposed by a vendor, or blamed for one? Start with attribution.
Confidential consultation for claimants and companies. We will tell you where the breach started, what duty applied and what the record supports.