Law firms should worry about their cybersecurity
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It should be no surprise that law firms store vast amounts of confidential and valuable information in their digital networks. This makes them a treasure trove for hackers – and all too often, an easy target.
As the National Post reported in their March 22 issue, the potential for a breach has led many Canadian law firms to focus more on cybersecurity. Past intrusions – including recent reports that nearly 500 UK law firms and two in the U.S. were infiltrated by hackers – help make the case.
The National Post reached out to Miller Thompson LLP lawyer Imran Ahmad for comment, who said that “Law firms are fertile ground for hackers because they have precious financial information, like transactional information, client information, and human resource records, that allows hackers to build online profiles of individuals.”
The article continues:
“Canadian law firms have hardly been immune from cyberattacks. The most highprofile attack in Canada started in September 2010 when hackers compromised the security of seven major Canadian firms — Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP and Stikeman Elliott LLP among them — involved in BHP Billiton’s proposed takeover of Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan. Both Blakes, counsel to BHP, and Stikeman Elliott, counsel to Potash, say that no client information was compromised.
An investigation revealed that the spyware responsible had been formulated on a Chinese- language keyboard and could be traced to servers in China linked to stateowned enterprises.
It was no secret that the Chinese government, worried about a global potash monopoly, opposed the deal. As the Chinese have long been accused of resorting to cyberespionage for various political and commercial purposes, the evidence implicating China was telling.
It subsequently emerged that an unrelated attack had targeted another major M&A, while a third was aimed at high-profile litigation.”
This issue is a big business problem for law firms. If clients can’t trust that their representatives properly secure their confidential information, they may consider leaving for another, more cyber-enlightened firm. Legal practices cannot ignore this issue in the twenty-first century.
Imran Ahmad also added that 2017 will be a big year because new privacy legislation “will require custodians of data, including law firms, to report information security breaches that pose a “real risk of significant harm.””
Luckily, Evizone provides the exact services law firms need to keep their worried clients at ease.
With Evizone Secure Communications (ESC), client and internal communications are protected by the strongest commercially available system for the secure exchange of messages and documents. Our patented technology ensures that client data is not exposed. Evizone Communications Governance (ECG) adds the benefit of complete transparency and accountability, giving law firms the tools to assure clients of their security. ECG’s powerful discovery tools can also automate discovery processes resulting in greater efficiency and happy clients.
About Evizone Ltd.
Evizone Ltd. is a revolutionary secure communications, encryption and compliance software and service provider based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Evizone offers innovative enterprise solutions in secure messaging (next generation beyond encrypted e mail) and encryption, encryption at rest, regulatory compliance, compliance archiving, WORM compliance, 17a-4 compliance, document life cycle management and communications governance and risk management. Evizone’s services protect organizations through best in class security, encryption, recipient controls, document life cycle management, discovery management, compliance management, compliance archiving, tamper proof WORM and 17a-4 compliance archiving and complete audit records against the enormous damage caused by communications breaches. Evizone’s patented technologies offer a level of security impossible to obtain with conventional or encrypted email and fast, powerful, user friendly compliance archiving. Evizone’s services are immediately available on multiple platforms and provide the strongest commercially available communications security and compliance archiving. You can follow Evizone on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Contact:
Tom Kott, HATLEY Strategy Advisors, 514.316.7082, tkott@hatleystrategies.com
