Excerpt:
Sharon Nelson and John Simek: Practice Safe Browsing

Practicing safe computing is a constant battle. It seems like the “bad guys” are always thinking of new ways to compromise your machine and get access to your data. You can improve your cybersecurity posture by practicing safe browsing. Start by using Chrome as your default browser. Next, add some extensions to block certain activity. Some of our favorites include:

• DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials to block hidden trackers and protect your privacy.
• Privacy Badger from the EFF to block spying ads and hidden trackers.
• AdBlock to block YouTube, Facebook and ads everywhere else on the web.
• IDN Safe to block internationalized domain names to prevent you from visiting probable fake sites.
• Windows Defender Browser Protection provides an additional layer of protection when browsing online.

Finally, install the PassProtect extension from the Chrome webstore, which alerts you if your password has been previously discovered in a data breach. It is powered by the database of Have I Been Pwned?

Read the entire article here.

Excerpt: Many commentators have predicted that 2017 will be the year of Amazon’s Alexa. Alexa is one of several virtual voice assistants that are working their way into our everyday lives. The Amazon Echo and the smaller Echo Dot had a great sales year in 2016 and finished off the holiday season as the best selling items on Amazon. Estimates by Forrester indicate that 6 million Amazon Echo devices were sold by the end of 2016. That’s a lot of hardware.

Alexa is just one of the virtual assistants available for lawyers today. There’s also Google Home/Google Assistant, Siri, Cortana and Samsung’s Bixby on the Galaxy S8 and S8+. Siri was the first on the market but has rapidly lost ground to Alexa and Google Assistant, the two big players in the virtual assistant offerings. Google has the advantage for research since it has access to the power of Google search. Alexa is a better integration device, especially with the addition of “skills” that allow it to connect to other services and apps. Bixby is the newest player in the virtual assistant space and promises to have some unique features that don’t exist in the others. One such feature is the ability to take a picture of something in a foreign language (e.g. road sign, business advertisement, etc.) and Bixby will translate it for you.

Read the entire article on page 41 here.

“The Dark Side of Cloud Computing” by Sensei’s Sharon Nelson and John Simek was featured recently in Senior Lawyer News. Senior Lawyer News is a publication of the Virginia State Bar.

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.

Read the entire article here on page 21.

Also, we were excited to host the seminar “Protecting Lawyers’ and Client’s Interests in the Event of the Lawyers’ Disability, Death or Other Disaster” at our office which is highlighted on page 9.

See the entire article on page 19 of the bulletin here.