Excerpt: Well, it’s finally here. In the fall of 2017, a vulnerability in WPA2 wireless encryption was discovered. Known as the Krack Attack, the flaw impacts every implementation of WPA2. The manufacturers needed to provide a patch update to fix the flaw. The Wi-Fi Alliance has now announced the availability of the WPA3 standard (to be implemented in certified devices starting later this year), vastly improving security over WPA2, which has been around for over 15 years and should be the current WiFi encryption of choice. WPA3 provides a new security protocol that contains improvements in terms of configuration, authentication and encryption. Just like WPA2, WPA3 will be available in personal and enterprise versions.
Cyberinsurance: Necessary, Expensive and Confusing as Hell
Excerpt:
Setting the stage
The title of this article was also the tile of a session presented at ABA TECHSHOW this year. And each part of the title is true. It is absolutely necessary to have cyberinsurance in order to manage your risk. No amount of technology, policies or training can guarantee that you will not be breached. Expensive? Oh yes. Get ready for sticker shock when you purchase cyberinsurance. Because we teach CLEs on cyberinsurance, we can tell you with some assurance that lawyers are very confused about what specific insurance they need. Insurance companies are not very helpful– the various policies offered across the industry are not at all standardized – and of course they are written in complicated language which often obfuscates their meaning.
Where are we today?
Not in a great place. According to a 2017 survey by the data analytics firm FICO, half of U.S. business have no cyberinsurance, 27% have no plans to buy coverage and only 16% report having a policy that covers all cyber risks. There is a certain justified cynicism about cyberinsurance. The news is rife with companies who had cyberinsurance, but found – after being breached – that a substantial portion of their damages were not covered.
The Dark Side of Cloud Computing
Excerpt: We have said for many years that the cloud will generally protect a law firm’s data better than the law firm would itself. As more and more law firms adopt Microsoft Office 365, thereby moving to the cloud, we have come to the conclusion that a few words of caution are in order when law firms entrust their data to the cloud.
With huge volumes of law firm confidential data (and data from other verticals) moving to the cloud, it is no wonder that the bad guys are taking aim at the clouds. And there seems to be a shift afoot, in which the main responsibility for protecting corporate data in the cloud belongs to the cloud customer rather than the cloud provider.
The Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) recently issued the latest version of its Treacherous 12 Top Threats to Cloud Computing Plus: Industry Insights report.
While there are many security concerns in the cloud, CSA’s list focuses on 12 concerns specifically related to the shared, on-demand nature of cloud computing. CSA conducted a survey of industry experts to gather professional opinions on the greatest security issues involving cloud computing. In order of severity, here are the 12 risks.
Secure Computing Abroad: Evolving Law Firm Policies
Excerpt: Traveling abroad? Worried about pickpockets? We have far bigger worries these days. If you travel abroad, you also have to worry about foreign governments – and our own – which may be interested in our data. Lawyers are not only not exempt from that interest – they are magnets. And when The New York Times published an article early this year about safeguarding data when crossing the border, we knew we were seeing a new hot cybersecurity topic – one that has primarily been considered at very large firms, until all the recent stories caught fire in the news. This article will focus on the dangers presented by our own government (the current runaway headline), but the advice is generally applicable to the risks presented by foreign governments, risks which may increase as there seems to be a worldwide ratcheting up of device seizure and examination at borders.
Do Lawyers Need a Digital Detox? Very Likely
Excerpt: There are very few lawyers who seem to have control over their digital devices. To the contrary, the devices themselves seem to be in control, demanding the nearly non-stop attention of lawyers. It might seem odd to hear two geeks talk about digital detoxing, but we recognized the need for it years ago. Perhaps, as geeks, we were on the bleeding edge of this phenomenon.
Author Nelson was not pleased that author Simek could not have dinner in a nice restaurant with his wife without regularly checking his phone. That was the beginning. In time, marital negotiations (and renegotiations) resulted in some rules! Our phones may be in our pockets but they are not invited to participate in nice dinners. Our phones, unless an emergency is in progress, are not checked after dinner. And our phones charge in the family room – they are not permitted in the bedroom. The majority of lawyers do have their phones charging in their bedroom on their bedside tables – or, worse yet, in their beds.
What to Do When Your Data Is Breached
Excerpt: “When, not if.” This mantra among cybersecurity experts recognizes the ever-increasing incidence of data breaches. In an address at a major information security conference in 2012, then-director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Robert Mueller put it this way: “I am convinced that there are only two types of companies: those that have been hacked and those that will be. And even they are converging into one category: companies that have been hacked and will be hacked again.”
Mueller’s observation is true for attorneys and law firms as well as small businesses through Fortune 500 companies. There have now been numerous reports of law firm data breaches. The FBI has reported that it is seeing hundreds of law firms being increasingly targeted by hackers. Law firm breaches have ranged from simple (like those resulting from a lost or stolen laptop or mobile device) to highly sophisticated (like the deep penetration of a law firm network, with access to everything, for a year or more).
Lawyers and law firms are beginning to recognize this new reality, but all too often they expose themselves to unnecessary risk simply because they don’t have a response plan for security incidents and data breaches. Attorneys have ethical and common law duties to employ competent and reasonable measures to safeguard information relating to clients. Many attorneys also have contractual and regulatory requirements for security. Attorneys also have ethical and
common law duties to notify clients if client data has been breached.
Compliance with these duties includes implementing and maintaining comprehensive information security programs, including incident response plans, for law practices of all sizes, from solos to the largest firms. The security programs and response plans should be appropriately scaled to the size of the firm and the sensitivity of the information.
Ransomware: How Many Bitcoins are in Your Wallet?
Excerpt: Ransomware is growing by leaps and bounds. There are reports that ransomware attacks have increased by 748% over the last year. A major international study found that almost forty percent of businesses were hit by ransomware last year. Those are some staggering numbers. Law firms are not immune to ransomware attacks either. Any business is at risk, including the solo attorney. What can we do about ransomware attacks?
In order to understand how to deal with a ransomware attack, we need to understand what ransomware is, how it is contracted, and what impact there may be on your law practice.
Future-Proofing Your Law Practice
Excerpt: As we travel around the Commonwealth lecturing to lawyers on technology and security topics,
we’ve met a lot of lawyers worrying about the future of their practices. Some are resigned. It is
not uncommon to hear “I just want to hang on for a couple more years. Then I’ll retire.” The
younger lawyers don’t have that option. They are inclined to ask, “What can I do? How will I
survive?”
VSB Executive Director Karen Gould wrote a column in the last issue of Virginia Lawyer in which
she laid out all of the competition today’s lawyer faces, from LegalZoom, Avvo and a host of
alternative legal services providers. We are sure some of you found it dismal reading.
But take heart, there are ways to compete – and not only to survive, but thrive.
IT Managed Service Providers – Nearly an Imperative
Excerpt: For more than 20 years, the authors have been providing IT services to law firms. Ah the good
old days, when life was simpler. Here’s how IT once worked. We would get hired, generally to
install and configure computers, servers, etc. Once our initial work was done, do you know
what we would do? We would wait for the phone to ring. Perhaps something wasn’t working or
perhaps the client needed training. Now and again, they would get upgraded hardware or
software. Most clients would have us do updates on a regular basis – in those more primitive
times, perhaps monthly. Most IT work was called “break/fix” – if something didn’t work, we
fixed it. And there were of course occasional projects . . .
Fast forward to today, when almost all businesses, including law firms and other legal entities,
are turning to managed service providers.
The Blockbuster That is Blockchain: What it Means to the Practice of Law
Excerpt: Several years ago, a Canadian attorney and good friend of ours, invested $10,000 in bitcoin.
Clearly, he is a lot smarter than us. We can’t even imagine the extent of his profit – several days
before we started to write this article, bitcoin hit an all-time high of $4,991.66 on September 2,
2017. It is down slightly as we write, but our friend certainly hit a jackpot.
We become aware of bitcoin wallets a few years ago, as husbands (mostly) began to hide assets
from their soon-to- be ex-wives in those wallets. And then came a barrage of ransomware
attacks. Law firm after law firm was paying the ransom ($300-$500 in the early days and $1500-
$3000 today). The cybercriminals usually want the ransom in bitcoin. To our amazement, there
are now bitcoin ATMs available in local gas stations and laundromats complete with posted
instructions on creating a bitcoin wallet for the Bitcoin novice.
In July, there were reports of a Citrix UK study which found that a third of UK companies were
stockpiling digital currency, mostly in bitcoins, to pay the ransom (an average of approximately
$176,000) if they became victims of a ransomware attack.
At the 2017 ILTACON conference, artificial intelligence wasn’t quite kicked to the curb, but the
buzz around blockchain became very loud indeed. In the last several months, it has become
increasingly clear that blockchain is a transformative technology that is going to make
substantial changes in the practice of law.
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