In response to the growing cyber security threats from outside of the United States, the U.S. Government has added an entire new category of sanctioned individuals and organizations to its list of Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons (“SDNs”). On April 1, 2015, the President issued an Executive Order under the authority of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.) (“IEEPA”), the same statute used to implement trade sanctions and embargos, titled “Blocking the Property of Certain Persons Engaging in Significant Malicious Cyber-Enabled Activities” (the “Cyber EO”).

The Cyber EO permits the U.S. Government to block the property and interest in property of any person or entity it finds to be responsible for or complicit in, cyber-enabled activities originating from, or directed by persons located, outside the United States that are reasonably likely to result in a significant threat to the national security, foreign policy, or economic health or financial stability of the United States and that have the purpose or effect of...