Law firms are among the most common targets of cyber criminals because of possessing vast amounts of highly sensitive and confidential client and firm information. Statistics show that around 30% of law firms faced cyber threats in 2022. While cybersecurity risks will never go away entirely, you must take steps to mitigate and minimise these risks whenever possible. To ensure data privacy and cybersecurity in your law firm, you need to use technology-based protections in your law firm and adopt behaviors that can limit the depth and breadth of a cyber-attack.
Cyberattacks on law firms are unfortunately on the rise
having severe consequences for the victims. You don’t want your company to be the
next target of cybercriminals. While preventing a data breach or cyberattack
may be challenging, there are steps that you can take to minimise the chances
of cyberattacks on your firm. Some of the most effective data privacy and
cybersecurity strategies you can implement in your firm are as follows:
Use Secure Legal Software
Any legal case management software vendor should
take regulations as seriously as your law firm does. When vetting potential software
vendors, remember to ask how they stay ahead of regulations. As a law firm in
the UK, you will have to ensure your practice management software vendor is prepared
to meet GDPR standards. Start by ensuring that any vendor contract includes the
standard contractual clauses on data privacy and cybersecurity standards set
forth by GDPR.
You should also ask your vendor how their software system
can help you implement security protocols in your firm. For instance, modern
law firm software vendors in the UK such as Lawsyst feature location and device-based
access control so you can manage who can access your clients and company
information. Lawsyst also uses encryption together with the Integrated
Microsoft Azure Single Sign One capability to empower you to prevent unauthorised
access to sensitive data in your law firm.
Train Your Employees
While using advanced law case management systems and other
modern tools is necessary to keep data security threats at bay, it is not
sufficient. Make sure your staff are well aware
of the information safety and security policies in your company and
continuously implement safe practices whether working from the office or
remotely. Your cybersecurity team may have the skills to combat any cyber
threat, however, it is not adequate to mitigate data breaches in law firms. Cybercriminals
can try to trick your attorney, paralegal, or, any other staff into clicking on
malicious links to harm your data security. That is why training your staff in security
awareness is essential to protect your law firm from cyber threats.
Nowadays, remote working is on the rise, making it crucial
for law firms to invest in security awareness training. If your employees also
work from their homes, having a cybersecurity team at your office may not be
adequate to cyber secure your company. You should rather open a dialogue on
effective cybersecurity practices and continue to train your employees to avoid
accidental user errors and cyberattacks. Don’t assume that everyone in
your company knows how to spot and avoid a phishing email or any other cyber
threat instead train your employees in data security best practices.
Discover and Eliminate Vulnerabilities
Eliminating vulnerabilities is mandatory to mitigate data
breaches in law firms. One of the best ways to discover vulnerabilities is by performing
a security assessment. Therefore, your IT department or your vendor should
conduct ongoing security risk assessments, vulnerability scans, penetration
tests, and system and network monitoring to detect suspicious activity and
discover potential data breaches. Using ordinary antivirus tools will not be
sufficient to detect sophisticated attacks on your law firm which sometimes go
unnoticed for months or years.
While detecting suspicious activities and potential cyber
threats is important, you should also make a clear plan to combat these risks
and eliminate vulnerabilities. Employ secure configurations and ongoing
security patch management for operating systems and monitoring for
cybersecurity risk alerts. Defending the network perimeter will only permit
those activities that are required to conduct business, helping you avoid
serious events of data breaches in your law firm.
Practice Good Password Hygiene
Nowadays, countless passwords
are used for many daily activities and tasks. Your law firm also uses passwords
to protect sensitive data but passwords can be hacked by cybercriminals in many
ways if they are not strong enough. Advanced hackers use sophisticated techniques
to capture, compromise, or otherwise gain access to passwords to get benefits
by attacking companies’ data. To keep your important information safe, you need
to practice good password hygiene.
Some of the effective password protection
tips are; using long passwords, avoiding the reuse of passwords, and
enabling two-factor authentication. You should also frequently change your
passwords to prevent potential cybersecurity risks in your firm. Enforce strong
password rules and make your employees practice good password hygiene so you
can keep your law firm safe and secure from the biggest cybersecurity threats.
Have Good Data Backups
While avoiding a ransomware attack should be the
priority of your law firm but you should also have good data backups to restore
data in case of a ransomware attack. It is smart to regularly back up your data
to a secure, encrypted location so you can restore most of your clients and
company data after a ransomware attack. With secure cloud-based legal case
management software such as Lawsyst, you can have a reliable backup to access
your data in case your data is stolen, held for ransom, or compromised. Lawsyst
case management system is engineered to survive ransomware attacks and is
tested periodically so you can always have a secure data backup.
Although law firms are one of the main targets of
cybercriminals but advanced legal technologies utilising AI and machine learning
are providing even greater protection for modern law firms. That means,
investing in the right legal tech along with adopting good cybersecurity
practices can help you prevent cyberattacks in your law firm.
