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Cybersecurity In the Legal Space: Is Your Organization Prepared?
Despite numerous reports of data breaches at law firms over the past decade, a warning from the FBI that hackers are specifically targeting international law firms, and increasing pressure from clients to address cybersecurity concerns, legal services providers on the whole have so far failed to respond adequately to the scope and urgency of the problem. The ABA's 2018 Legal Technology Survey Report reveals that only about half (53%) of lawyers say their firms have a policy to manage the retention of information/data held by the firm, only 25% of respondents report having an incident response plan, and an astonishing 29% report having no security policies at all.
As a measure of basic cybersecurity preparedness by legal professionals, these numbers are alarming. Organizations that continue to be complacent about data security ignore the considerable risks posed by a breach: extended downtime, loss of billable hours, destruction or loss of sensitive data and work product, and the potentially catastrophic costs associated with repairing the damage — both to their technology infrastructure and to their reputation and brand.
Getting Serious About Cybersecurity
It is commonplace in security circles to say it's not a matter of if your organization will experience a breach — it's a matter of when. So how should law firms and legal departments prepare in a way that's commensurate with the risk? First, they need to understand that an effective cybersecurity program can't focus exclusively on preventing attacks or other forms of data loss; having a detailed incident response plan for the mitigation of breaches once they happen is equally, if not more, important. A purely defensive posture is almost certain to fail.
Developing an incident response plan forces organizations to establish policies documenting security-related roles and responsibilities, and identify tools required for the quickest possible response to a triggering event. Plans need to specify what kinds of events trigger a response and the initial steps the organization will take when that happens, such as isolating workstations and servers and making forensic copies of the affected data. Plans also need to spell out exactly how the organization will handle internal and external communications, documentation and reporting. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has developed a Computer Security Incident Handling Guide that serves as a good starting point for legal organizations serious about preparing for the inevitable.
Understand How Most Breaches Happen
Hackers are aware that law firms are soft targets. Because law firms are focused on the business of law, they may not have top-notch security technology in place and their employees typically lack awareness of specific risk scenarios. Firms also handle data that can be extremely valuable to bad actors seeking, for example, to pursue insider trading schemes or gain access to intellectual property.
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