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Information Governance: Law Firms' Cybersecurity Weak Spot

By Ian Raine

With the Panama Paper incident and other noteworthy recent law firm security breaches top of mind (see, “Hackers Breach Law Firms,” Wall Street Journal (March 29, 2016)), law firms in the U.S. and around the world are increasingly concerned about being hacked by cybercriminals (see, “Cyberattack Exposes Law Firms' Weak Spots,” Wall Street Journal (Dec. 29, 2016). In response, many firms have significantly upgraded their perimeter security systems to ensure that only authorized and authenticated users can access their systems. Yet perimeter security is only one part of a comprehensive legal data security strategy and by itself leaves open a weak spot — attackers who, using phishing or other methods, are able to bypass strong perimeter security systems, and once inside find themselves able to access a firm's emails, documents and other work product.

But law firms do not just have to live with this weakness. With a strong information governance strategy, law firms can restrict access to sensitive work product to employees who need this information, and also quickly and accurately identify potential attacks that have bypassed perimeter security systems. Such successful law firm information governance strategies secure work product on a need-to-know basis so that all users do not have broad access to information that is not immediately relevant to their business purpose. They also encrypt and protect work product using multiple authentication mechanisms, so that if any employee is compromised, access is still not easily provided to the hacker. Finally, they can detect threats and identify attacks, helping law firms stop attackers from securing client information, and enabling them to alert clients when their information has (or has not) been compromised by an attack.

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