The imminent danger facing the legal Industry

Attorney-client privilege extends to client data

Attorney-client privilege is what makes a client feel secure from the potential risk of having sensitive information fall into the wrong hands. Unfortunately, client data doesn’t always receive that same luxury. Data breaches in the legal industry are on the rise and most firms are not giving cybersecurity the attention it deserves. Data compiled in 2020 by Blakes Canadian Cybersecurity Trends Study shows some troubling statistics:

• 33% of organizations that suffered a cyber incident had their operations disrupted

• 25% suffered primarily a financial loss

• 21% suffered an impact on their relationships with partners

• Approximately 50% of organizations took over two weeks to recover from a cybersecurity incident while almost 25% needed more than a month

• Only 31% reported incidents to police

• Only 29% of organizations that suffered a cyber incident had an effective incident response plan that they followed

As a generalization the legal industry has a reputation of not being as tech-savvy, which cybercriminals may see as an opportunity or an easy target. And of course, why wouldn’t they target them? They are essentially a treasure trove of incredibly sensitive data. Firms bring together anywhere from dozens to hundreds of organizations that if targeted individually would be a much more labor-intensive process. When you’re able to access that data through a firm, you’ve drastically cut down the time to crack that code.  

So, what technology do you need to have in place in order to better protect yourself? At a minimum, all organizations should have the following technologies to protect their data

• Firewalls – help protect your network by filtering traffic and blocking outsiders from gaining unauthorized access to the private data on your organization’s computers

• Intrusion prevention – monitor your data and put a solution in place that prevents attacks from developing

• Virus protection – detect, prevent and take action to disarm or remove malicious software from your organization’s computers

• System monitoring – control technology systems by analyzing operation and performance to detect and alert potential errors or issues.

• Data leakage prevention – enable your organization to set rules that classify confidential and sensitive information to prevent it from being disclosed maliciously or accidentally

• Spam filtering – identify unsolicited, unwanted, and virus-infested emails when they’re coming into your organization and stop them from getting into your email inboxes

Does your head spin thinking about getting all these systems into place? It’s easy to start a conversation by email or by phone so we can find out more about you, and your organization’s needs.

At FoxNet, our Managed Services provide organizations in the legal industry peace of mind by providing a comprehensive cybersecurity solution that will allow you to rest easy knowing your client data has the same privilege you provide your client.  We’ve been designing, deploying, and managing all types of IT infrastructures for small, medium and large enterprise companies throughout the region for many years. We’re extremely proud to have been recognized as one of Canada’s Top 100 Service Providers by CDN Industry magazine, and we were included in this year’s Cloudtango’s Top 50 MSPs in Canada list.  

If you’d like to learn how to keep your data safe and your operations running smoothly, reach out to us today at [email protected] and ask about our Network Scan.