Are You Using Law Firm Technology Ethically?

Using Law Firm Technology Ethically

The ever-evolving nature of the modern workplace has brought about many changes to the legal industry. Many are beneficial – the cloud offers more convenient access to data, case management software streamlines tasks, and mobile technology allows legal professionals to take their cases anywhere they need to.

However, with this increased level of convenience comes an increased level of risk. If it’s easier for you to access private client data, it’s potentially easier for cybercriminals to do so as well. This poses an important ethical question – are you doing your due diligence to protect the data that clients have trusted you with?

Cybercrime In The Legal World – Are You At Risk?

As of a few years ago, a third of in-house counsel respondents in “The State of Cybersecurity Report: an in-house perspective” reported that they had experienced a data breach – and cybercrime is only expected to grow, with the occurrence rate of data breaches estimated to increase by 22.5% each year up to 2023.

According to the ABA Legal Technology Report, legal firms use a range of cybersecurity measures at varying rates:

• Spam filters – 87%
• Anti-spyware – 80%
• Firewall software – 79%
• Pop-up blockers – 75%
• Desktop and laptop virus scanning – 73%
• Email virus scanning – 69%
• Mandatory passwords – 68%
• Network virus scanning 66%
• Hardware firewalls 57%

How do your cybersecurity defenses measure up?

Are Protecting Client Data?

Are you familiar with Formal Opinion 483?

Issued by the ABA, titled Lawyers’ Obligations After an Electronic Data Breach or Cyberattack, it states that:

“Lawyers must employ reasonable efforts to monitor the technology and office resources connected to the internet, external data sources, and external vendors providing services relating to data and the use of data.”

Would you say that you are?

What Should Your Law Firm Cybersecurity Include?

To start, consider implementing these simple cybersecurity measures:

• Anti-virus Software
  Antivirus software is used in conjunction with other security technology to provide defense against malware, adware, and spyware. Each of these cybercriminal tactics has the potential to do immense damage to internal processes and a company’s reputation. The job of antivirus software is to spot, block, and isolate intrusive, malicious applications so they can’t do damage to your data and legitimate software.

  Antivirus is installed to protect at the user level, known as endpoint protection, and is designed to detect and block a virus or malware from taking root on a user’s computer, or worse, accessing a network to which the user is connected.

• Firewalls
  Your firewall is your first line of defense for keeping your information safe.

  A firewall is a particular type of solution that maintains the security of your network. It blocks unauthorized users from gaining access to your data. Firewalls are deployed via hardware, software, or a combination of the two.

• Encryption
  Encrypted data is formatted in a secret code that would be meaningless if intercepted. It is one of the most efficient ways to secure a database given that decryption can only occur through a key, which is essentially a “secret password”.

This is especially important when your data is in transit – whether being sent in an email or in-between your office and your offsite data storage location. You need to make sure that if in the event the wrong party gets their hands on your data, they won’t be able to use it against you.

Do You Have An Expert Team Managing Your Firm’s Cybersecurity?

Assistance from an expert IT company can be incredibly valuable – SemTech IT will help. Our team will help implement a range of robust security measures, deploying security devices like firewalls, patching, antivirus software updates, intrusion and gateway protection, and more. With our help, you don’t have to be worried about cybercrime in the legal industry.

Like this article? Check out the following blogs to learn more:

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