The law is something that almost everyone has an opinion about but few people understand. If you doubt this, go to a social event and tell people what you do for a living, or if you are too swamped with work to socialize, just scroll down to the comments section of any news article and be amazed, or perhaps dismayed, at the misconceptions that people have about the law. Cybersecurity is another area of knowledge that is on everyone’s mind, despite being poorly understood. People are happy to rant and rave about cybersecurity all day long, but their understanding of it rarely goes beyond thinking that every smartphone maker or web browser except the one that they use goes out of its way to sell your data to the highest bidder. Just as ignorance of the law is not a valid excuse for illegal actions, lack of knowledge about cybersecurity is not an excuse for leaving your law firm’s private information vulnerable to data thieves. It is essential for family law attorneys to develop a cybersecurity strategy for their law firms.
The Importance of Cybersecurity for Family Law Firms
All businesses that use computers in any capacity need cybersecurity. Your company’s computers contain credit card numbers for processing payments from clients and Social Security numbers from your employees’ tax paperwork. This is true of any business, from dance studios to nail salons, but it is especially true for law firms. Not only do law firms compile the kinds of information that identity thieves love, such as bank account numbers, but they also contain all kinds of details about people’s legal problems, and nowhere are these details juicier than at family law firms.
If you leave your computer network vulnerable, you could suffer a data breach. Companies have had to pay out large amounts of money when clients whose data got stolen sued them for failing to prevent a breach of their data. With proper cybersecurity, data breaches are preventable.
Stay Current With Software Updates and Data Protection Patches
Data thieves are always at work building new viruses to steal data from computers, applications, and websites, and cybersecurity professionals are always working to stop these breach attempts from succeeding. Large companies have a permanent cybersecurity staff that assesses threats and takes measures to prevent them, but that does not mean that cybersecurity is only for major corporations. Small businesses need cybersecurity, too, and this includes family law firms.
If you cannot afford to hire a cybersecurity team to work for your law firm full-time, then hire cybersecurity personnel on a consulting basis. At least once per year, ask them to assess your law firm’s level of data protection, identify threats, and take measures to avert these threats. Some family law firms operate on a shoestring budget, but paying for consulting with a cybersecurity firm every year costs a lot less than paying a lawsuit settlement to people whose data got stolen because of your lack of cybersecurity.
For example, cybersecurity experts might recommend that you use cloud-based storage for clients’ data instead of keeping it on the company’s physical devices. If one device in your network gets breached, it is easy for thieves to steal data from all of the devices on the network. By contrast, it is much harder to steal data from a cloud.
Secure Login Practices for Your Law Firm
Breaching a computer or email account by guessing the password is the oldest trick in the book, but sometimes today’s data thieves are able to breach companies’ computer networks or employees’’ online accounts through this simple technique. The solution to this problem is to not make it easy for unauthorized users to access password-protected devices and accounts, no matter how clever they may be at guessing passwords. These are some ways that you can prevent data breaches of the password theft genre:
- Configure your company’s devices and employees’ online accounts so that passwords automatically expire every three months
- When employees try to reset a password because they forgot the old one, have your system send the reset link to the employee’s personal email account or cell phone
- Require passwords to be at least eight characters long and to contain a combination of uppercase letters, lowercase letters, numerals, and punctuation marks
- Enable two-factor authentication, so that employees must enter single-use codes or approve logins on their phones in addition to entering passwords
Cybersecurity is an ongoing process, but a rudimentary cybersecurity strategy is better than none.
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