Legal practices are not your typical target when it comes to cyberattacks — or at least they wouldn’t appear to be. While a large law firm can invest in adequate cyber protection, a very small business could find such an investment challenging. Fortunately, It doesn’t have to be this way.
In reality, legal practices deal with a lot of personal information that must be guarded, and any attacks that block its activity might be sufficient to drive it out of business.
It’s easy to understand why some types of businesses and industries appear to be more targeted by cybercriminals than others. After all, cyberattackers go after the money, right? Well, that’s not always the case. In some situations, the information obtained from a cyberattack can be extremely valuable.
Legal practices, especially smaller ones, handle vast amounts of sensitive client data. Maintaining client confidentiality has become increasingly difficult as phishing scams, data breaches, and ransomware attacks increase each year. There is a way out of this problem, and it doesn’t really require a lot of effort or financial investments.
Surprisingly, phishing is one of the most common attacks in the legal field. Cybercriminals pose as legitimate entities, tricking employees into divulging sensitive information or clicking malicious links.
Phishing attacks use social engineering to prey on trust and a sense of urgency. For example, an attacker can impersonate a senior partner and email an associate requesting sensitive client files or bank account information. If the associate is tricked, the cybercriminal gains access to confidential data.
Private information hitting the dark web opens the company to litigation and class action lawsuits, which can deal a major financial hit to a small legal practice. Fortunately, protecting against these types of attacks only requires a few measures.
Data breaches can have serious consequences for small legal practices because it can expose client-sensitive information, including case files, intellectual property and financial records. Given the value of the information legal practices store, data breaches are among the most common security incidents they face. Again, protecting this data is paramount, and the risk mitigation costs pale in comparison to the damages that can be inflicted on the company by a cyberattack.
Ransomware attacks have been on the rise, with legal firms frequently targeted. In these attacks, cybercriminals encrypt a firm’s data and demand a ransom in exchange for its release, but a data breach often accompanies these attacks.
Ransomware is also one of the few cyberattacks that can close down a company if it goes on long enough, if the data stolen by criminals ends up online, or even if the firm simply has no backup system. In some situations, hackers have used the stolen data from legal cases and tried to extort people involved, such as witnesses.
Almost always, criminals use the stolen information to extort the companies, forcing them to pay so the client information doesn’t end up online on the dark web. Of course, there’s no guarantee the criminals won’t release the stolen data even if they are paid. The risk mitigation measures are straightforward.
While external threats receive the most attention, insider threats are another significant risk to client confidentiality. It’s usually some form of a data breach that involves employees doing something wrong or against company policies. It can be something innocuous, such as sending an email to the wrong address, or more serious, like using the same credentials on work and home computers, exposing the company to a more severe cyberattack.
Small legal practices face growing cybersecurity risks, with phishing, ransomware, and data breaches threatening client confidentiality. Implementing strong cybersecurity measures is crucial, and Bitdefender’s Small Business Security provides a comprehensive solution with key features, including:
Legal firms can significantly improve their defenses with this comprehensive security suite, ensuring both operational security and client trust, above all else.
Bitdefender Ultimate Small Business Security is an extended version of our consumer-friendly security suite that covers every attack scenario, protecting your firm’s precious assets before the bad guys set foot in your network. Best of all, it can be administered by anyone in your company – no IT skill set required. Visit bitdefender.com/solutions/small-business-security to see Bitdefender Ultimate Small Business Security in action.
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Silviu is a seasoned writer who followed the technology world for almost two decades, covering topics ranging from software to hardware and everything in between.
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