The past year has been marked by a steady stream of significant Data Privacy and Cybersecurity developments, including executives facing more pressure to ensure that their companies' cybersecurity operations are in order, an unprecedented wave of regulation driven by the explosion of artificial intelligence, and the state consumer privacy law landscape more than doubling in size. As cyberattacks continue to hammer companies across every industry, federal and state regulators have responded by beefing up rules governing data breach disclosures and the protection of personal information. "These actions have shone a very bright light on upper management and really brought home that they have direct accountability for cybersecurity and that they need to manage not only cybersecurity operations but also communications," said Data, Privacy & Cybersecurity partner Jud Welle to Law.com.