Every week brings a new headline about cybersecurity, or rather the data breach that has occurred because company X was hacked by cyberattack Y. Ransomware, malware, distributed denial of service, phishing – each week it’s a new culprit and a different victim. The news can be intimidating. Many of the companies being hardest hit have resources and reputations.
This creates the idea that cyberattacks are all powerful, disruptive forces that can strike anywhere at any time, rather like lightning in a storm. However, just like lightning, cyberattacks have safeguards. They can be guarded against by taking precautionary steps, many legal firms are simply dragging their feet when it comes to putting up the metaphorical lightning rod.
The Current State Of Law Firm Cybersecurity
Data from a LogicForce report confirms that many legal firms are not doing enough when it comes to matters of cybersecurity. Unlike certain industries, law offices have specific standards set on data governance and information security. The penalties for violating said regulations are severe, including loss of license and income.
Nevertheless, the LogicForce report found that only 5 percent of law firms were compliant with their own cybersecurity and data retention policies. In fact, the overwhelming majority – 77 percent – hadn’t even formed concrete cybersecurity protocols.
This slowness when handling such vital matters is not only dangerous but potentially costly. Studies found that SMBs are paying roughly $117,000 per data breach incident. Larger companies can expect each cyberattack to cost over $1 million.
LogicForce data concluded that cybercriminals have no rhyme or reason when it comes to determining which firms they target. Large or small, wealthy or new – every law firm is at risk and cannot afford to delay cybersecurity policies. Cybercrime is not like its traditional counterpart. The infiltration does not need to be designed to a specific building blueprint or staff makeup. Part of what makes cybersecurity such a pressing issue is a hacker’s ability to target multiple businesses in different industries and locations simultaneously.
While every law firm LogicForce surveyed was targeted for classified client data, only 60 percent were even aware they’d been breached. Cybercrime does damage over time. The longer a malicious third party has access to data, the more files they can access. Organizations that can detect a breach within its first day can drastically limit the damage being done.
Cybercriminals can target multiple servers and networks simultaneously.How Cloud Solutions Can Help
Many legal firms can feel powerless when it comes to cybersecurity. It can feel like this specialized new form of protection demands either mass resources or a talented and trained IT staff. However, law offices do not need to combat cybercrime on their own.
Part of the reason cloud solutions like Afinety Cloud Platform have become popular is due to their increased cybersecurity abilities. Multifactor authentication, data encryption and email protection are ways in which firm can protect themselves from breaches. Many cloud solutions are designed with detection tools to watch for attempted data breaches. For example, Afinety’s anti-intrusion service successfully blocked a total of 6,931 breach attempts and 1,152 would-be virus attacks on our clients’ networks all within the month of April of this year!
Law offices clearly need help with their cybersecurity efforts and cloud solutions can provide that crucial aid.