Data privacy for legal firms – A legal company is a prime target for hackers because of the enormous amounts of intellectual property, personally identifiable information (PII), and business secrets it has. The American Bar Association estimates that roughly 29% of law firms had security breaches in 2020, supporting the need for law firm data protection. A data breach that exposes sensitive data might be a company’s downfall, but a few strong security measures can help avoid it from happening. In this blog, with earbudscity.com, let’s find out some useful information about data privacy for legal firms!
1. Data Privacy For Legal Firms – How to Protect Law Firm Data in 7 Ways
A variety of security procedures, including performing numerous vulnerability assessments using the most recent technologies, are needed to secure data.
1.1 Establish a data security policy.
Start with the fundamentals. Make a data security policy that your entire firm can abide by before digging further into the technical aspects of your security solutions. Other than that, tell your staff about two-factor authentication and how to enable it on the business-approved applications they use. One of the greatest ways to ensure data privacy for legal firms is to do this.
1.2 Make a Robust Password
Your passwords are the keys to your priceless data, thus they must be challenging to guess in order to reduce any risk to data security. The security of the company’s data might be seriously compromised if you choose a password that coincides with your personal information, such as birthdates. Security suffers when passwords are kept simple and easy to guess, such a straight number string. By combining letters, numbers, and symbols, make a lengthy, difficult password. To increase difficulty, you can change the case of the alphabets. And employ a password management solution to effectively handle the credentials. Do not reuse passwords, either.
1.3 Educate Your Employees
Phishing emails and other hacker traps are difficult for some people to avoid. Some workers are unable to distinguish between a legitimate and fake email. In reality, 30% of data breaches start when employees misuse passwords or implement data security settings incorrectly. Therefore, it is essential to inform and teach your staff on the various ransomware techniques in order to secure the safety of your legal firm’s data.
1.4 Achieve System-Wide Security
Your data is transformed into an encrypted code through the process of encryption, which requires a password or key to decrypt. Encryption is a top-tier solution for all types of data, whether it comes through an email, hard disk, or web browser. Utilizing only programs and applications with end-to-end encryption is recommended.
1.5 Keep an eye on communications
Through communications, hackers can use a law firm’s data to their advantage. Keep a watchful eye on internal and external communications, and encrypt your company’s emails, to increase your security. To ensure that your communication stays within your firm, make use of secure cloud networks like Azure or AWS.
1.6 Implement access control
Keep in mind that not everyone need access to all information, which is why access restriction must be strictly enforced. Only selected personnel should be permitted to view or access particular information or sensitive data.
1.7 Review your security system on a regular basis
The strongest security measures may still contain flaws or the capacity to introduce new vulnerabilities. If you don’t regularly assess the data security of your company, hackers may take advantage of these hidden flaws. It is imperative to create an audit list and make sure that none of your former workers have access to the data. To maintain data protection for legal firms, check firewalls and anti-virus software. Another option is to hire a seasoned penetration testing business to do a security audit. To find the weaknesses in a company’s security system, a penetration test employs both automated and manual procedures.
2. Data Privacy For Legal Firms – Why Data Security for Law Firms is a Growing Concern
Cyberattacks are extremely dangerous for law firms. They include private, delicate information that hackers would find extremely valuable. Additionally, a lot of businesses have access to trust accounts that contain sizable quantities of money. However, a startlingly high proportion of businesses deploy weak security measures; only 43% use file encryption and less than 40% use two-factor authentication.
In other words, there are several reasons for hackers to target legal firms. Smaller businesses are not immune from such breaches, which often only make headlines when they involve major corporations, like the $42 million ransom sought of Grubman Shire Meiselas & Sacks in 2020. And it’s a situation that could only become worse.
Following the pandemic, the majority of law firms are adopting a hybrid working strategy that enables attorneys to work from home at least occasionally during the week. However, most businesses don’t take cybersecurity seriously. Despite the fact that 65% of small businesses now utilize cloud-based services, only 35% of survey respondents used any of the typical cybersecurity safeguards stated in the ABA survey question, and 18% of respondents used none of the security measures of the categories indicated.
This creates a huge obstacle. The WiFi networks at law firms’ offices are probably much more secure than those in the homes of its attorneys. The data of the company is much more at danger if employees utilize insecure public networks (like those at their neighborhood coffee shop).
Conclusion
A legal company is an enticing target for hackers because of the enormous amounts of intellectual property, personally identifiable data (PII), and trade secrets it has. An important argument in favor of law firm data protection is made by the American Bar Association’s estimate that in 2020, over 29% of law firms had security breaches. Critical information being exposed as a consequence of a data breach might spell the end for a business, but a few good security measures can help avoid that from occurring.
I hope you found the information of this article about data privacy for legal firms useful. Have a good day!
