Cyber Fraud in Finance: From Threat to Strategy

Steve Brodie has extensive experience in insurance-related litigation, including coverage, defense, and regulatory matters. His clients include Fortune 100 companies, major insurers, financial services companies, telecommunications firms, officers and directors, institutional lenders, and developers. As lead counsel, he has defended matters in numerous jurisdictions and more than 20 states, including California, Florida, Hawaii, Kentucky, Michigan, New York, Tennessee, and Virginia. He also frequently handles litigation regarding securities and complex commercial matters.

Steve counsels a wide variety of insurance companies with respect to multiple lines of business as well as leading insurance brokers. His services include litigating insurance coverage matters, first party claims, bad faith claims, a wide variety of class action defense including securities, cyber and data breaches, and TCPA matters. Steve also represents insurance carriers before insurance regulators and handles regulatory and business litigation. He has long been involved in a wide range of substantive insurance areas, including forming reciprocal insurance companies, drafting insurance policies, and loss mitigation transfers. He is also experienced in the emerging field of environmental impairment insurance and cybersecurity.

He is the primary attorney responsible for assembling a team of lawyers and professionals to defend the largest U.S. provider of prepaid mobile phone services in actions across the country against international traffickers of prepaid mobile phones. These traffickers are involved in schemes to alter the phones’ proprietary software, repackage the devices, and resell them domestically and abroad to unsuspecting customers.

Jeffrey Bernstein is a director in Kaufman Rossin's Risk Advisory Services practice. His focus includes security incident and event planning and response, cybersecurity strategy, governance, compliance, training, and intelligence. Jeff is a member of the Kaufman Rossin Financial Investigations Team steering committee. 

Jeff has extensive experience providing cybersecurity response, governance, risk and compliance services for private clients and family offices, as well as businesses in regulated industries, including financial institutions, investment firms, healthcare organizations and law firms. He has over 20 years of experience advising clients on the security and compliance of their networks, applications, systems, people, property and information.

Prior to joining Kaufman Rossin, he was the managing director of cybersecurity advisory services and strategy at an independent public accounting and advisory services firm based in New York City.
Jeff is a recognized thought leader who has contributed to industry guidance, authored articles, written white papers, and been quoted by TV and print media. He is a contributor to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) SP 800-46 Rev. 3: Guide to Enterprise Telework Security and NIST SP1800-1: Security Electronic Health Records on Mobile Devices. His articles have been featured in Scotsman Guide, USA Today/Gannett publications, The Straits Times, and other outlets. He regularly presents at conferences and has lectured master’s studies classes at New York University.

Jeff is an Advisory Board Member of the USF Muma College of Business Cybersecurity Education program and an Advisory Board member of the Ithaca College Cybersecurity Studies program. He is also an affiliate of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE).

He studied Computer Science and Business at Northeastern University and the Rochester Institute of Technology.

Vanessa Singh Johannes is a seasoned trial attorney who counsels individuals and corporations on a wide array of civil, criminal, and compliance matters. She offers clients nearly two decades of experience, both as a former federal prosecutor and complex litigator.

For a decade, Vanessa honorably served as an assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida, where she tried dozens of jury trials, handled hundreds of criminal and civil investigations, and argued appellate matters before the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals. She investigated, indicted, and tried cases involving serious crimes that affected everyday people in the Miami community, large companies, and U.S. taxpayers, including fraud, money laundering, espionage, civil rights, arms trafficking, human trafficking, and murder.

Vanessa’s vast experience as an assistant U.S. attorney lends her unique insight into all phases of government investigations — such as grand jury inquiries, complex search warrants, and mutual legal assistance treaty requests — and reliable knowledge of federal practice in the district. During her tenure, she also developed a close working relationship with federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies, including the U.S. Secret Service, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, Drug Enforcement Agency, Homeland Security Investigations, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

In private practice across two major law firms, Vanessa has developed a successful track record handling complex “bet-the-company” cases. She represents companies in an array of civil matters, complex litigation, and crises and assists clients in responding to federal agency inquiries, conducting internal investigations, board presentations, training on relevant laws, and crafting compliance programs to meet legal regulatory and
criminal requirements. Armed with her experience as a federal prosecutor, Vanessa also handles complex criminal matters, including those involving the False Claims Act, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, wire fraud, and money laundering.