Data security requirements change rapidly and new threats are always emerging. A data breach could not only produce significant financial liability but can also lead to significant reputational damage.
How secure is your clients' data in the face of increasing cybersecurity threats?
Your firm's reputation is built on trust and confidence. Once that trust is broken, it's tough to win it back, so preventing a data breach is critical. Bound by the high standards of a solicitor-client privilege, you must adopt specific law firm cybersecurity best practices to protect confidential information.
How do you create a cybersecurity strategy to safeguard client data and protect your law firm from ransom payouts, reputational damage, and losses due to system downtime?
Read on for tips and guidelines from our data security experts. And don't forget to sign up for the LexCloud.ca Cybersecurity Seminar for Law Firms.
Cybersecurity risks for law firms
Law firms are increasingly adopting digitization and remote work, which makes them more vulnerable to online fraud, ransomware attacks, phishing attempts and physical security breaches in the office or while traveling.
- The importance of protecting client data: Your firm has a professional and ethical responsibility to safeguard client data, and failure to do so can result in severe consequences, including legal liability, professional sanctions, reputational damage, and loss of client trust.
- Employees are the weakest link: Employee errors (such as falling for phishing attempts, clicking on malicious links, gaining unauthorized access to information, or inadvertent or unauthorized disclosure of sensitive information) can often be a significant factor in successful cyber attacks. The best way to protect against cyber threats is employee awareness and vigilance.
For a small law firm like yours, what's to lose? What happens if you fail to prevent or thwart a cyberattack before it actually happens?
- Data leaks of sensitive client information
- Disruptions due to unplanned downtime of your information systems
- Reputational harm and/or disclosure of security incidents to your clients
- Risk of professional negligence claims
It's time to train your law firm staff to protect against cyber threats:
Our security seminar on Cybersecurity Training for Law Firms is the ultimate source of information you need to create a strategy for cybersecurity for law firms, articulate company policies and best practices for security and educate employees and stakeholders across the firm.
Register for the seminar now to protect your firm.
The most common cyber threats faced by Canadian law firms
Phishing attacks
Phishing is a cyber threat in which the attackers try to trick users into revealing sensitive information, such as usernames, passwords, or financial data. The attackers may disguise themselves as trustworthy entities through emails, text messages, or other means of communication.
Ransomware attacks
In a ransomware attack, hackers steal and lock access to an organization's data and demand a ransom or payment in exchange for restoring it. They may threaten to delete or publicly disclose the data if the ransom is not paid (which can unleash chaos for the victim firm as it will lead to significant business disruption as well as financial and reputational damage.)
Social engineering attacks
Social engineering involves deceiving users into actions that may compromise data security, often through psychological manipulation, impersonation, or manipulation of trust to gain unauthorized access to information or systems.
The (real) cost of cyber attacks
The cost of global cyber crimes is likely to reach $10.5 trillion annually by 2025. This includes the cost of lost business, including ransom payments.
Then there are other indirect costs—for example—if your firm is covered by cyber insurance, your annual premium may increase, or you may face a future denial of coverage.
Cyber attacks can prove expensive for your firm. The average remediation cost for companies in Canada is as high as $1.92 million. Costs include ransom payments (for ransomware attacks), unplanned downtime, loss of business, and more.
Just 90 minutes of your time can protect you from huge potential losses due to cyber threats!
Learn simple, insightful tactics to protect yourself and your law firm from these and more cyber security threats.
If that's not 90 minutes well-spent, then what is?! Join the LexCloud.ca
security seminar Click here to connect with us and find out more about enrolling.
How to create a cybersecurity strategy for your law firm
When it comes to protecting your law firm from cyberattacks, it's best to adopt a proactive approach. This means you don't wait for an incident to occur and then respond to the situation, but you plan for measures that will prevent an attack from happening or, at the very least, thwart the attack immediately and minimize the damage.
Your cybersecurity policy will include a combination of security software and user security policies.
Pro Tip: Your cybersecurity policy should not focus heavily on technology solutions alone. Security infrastructure is essential, but it's just as important to empower your employees with knowledge about how cyberattacks happen and safe practices they can adopt to safeguard themselves, their data and the firm.
Let's look at the top five tips that can help you develop a cybersecurity policy for your law firm:
- Create company policies around data handling and storage.
- Conduct regular security audits and publish a step-by-step incident response plan on what to do when a data breach occurs.
- Establish protocols for safe usage of websites, email and file sharing methods, safe data access while traveling, and using passwords, MFA (multi-factor authentication) and QR codes securely.
- Invest in cyber liability insurance to provide financial protection in the event of a data breach or cyber attack.
- Work with a legal technology partner: Legal case management software, document management systems and remote collaboration platforms form the logistical backbone of a modern law firm's operations. A specialized legal IT solutions partner can manage all your technology and leave your firm free of security headaches.
If all this seems like a lot to learn and practice in your firm, don't worry—there's help at hand.
Connect with us to register for our LSO-accredited seminar on Cybersecurity Training for Law Firms and educate your firm's legal professionals & support staff on how to avoid security pitfalls and better protect your clients, your firm and the trust you have worked so hard to build!
Why should my firm's staff attend the cybersecurity seminar?
- Learn simple, insightful tactics to protect yourself and your law firm from these and more cyber security threats.
- After the seminar, you can take a simple online assessment. You will receive a Certificate of Completion once you successfully complete this assessment (don't worry, you can attempt it several times!)
- We also provide a detailed Training Reference Guide and a Quick Reference Sheet as an easy and quick reminder of security best practices.
Connect with LexCloud.ca to register for the seminar and join our IT experts for this essential session.
