No Questions, No Answers, Just Smart Business Practices In The Age Of Cyber Theft And Ransom

We are all subject to cyber crimes. It doesn’t matter what size law firm you have. According to a security blog HashedOut, more than 22% of ransomeware attacks in Q1 2019 targeted professional services organizations (CPAs & Law Firms). The cybercrime industry generated at least $1.5 trillion in revenue in 2018. $76 billion of the cybercrime economy involved Bitcoin. 4.1 billion reported records were exposed in the first half of 2019. Even if half of these statistics are accurate, this is a serious problem for small law firms. It can put us out of business.

Below are some basic suggestions for you and your firm.

1.  Purchase cyber security insurance. It’s relatively inexpensive and can save your practice.

2.  Know where your documents are stored. There is no “Cloud” in the sky. Your documents are on a server somewhere. Know where.

3.  Know where your back up is stored. Redundancy over servers secures your data if one server crashes. There should be a full backup of your information in a different state than your main data.

4.  Use dual authentication. It is amazingly simple now.

5.  Use 12-digit passwords. A 9-digit passwords can now be cracked in under two hours, 12-digit numbers should take about 2 centuries.

6.  Virus protection is not enough. Get protection against DDoS attacks.

7.  Stop using Drop Box to house client data. You aren’t a fabric company.

8.  STOP OPENING EMAIL LINKS AND ATTACHMENTS YOU DON’T EXPECT.

9.  Train everyone that works with you on #8.

10.  Don’t use public Wi-Fi at airports, on airplanes or in coffee shops. Get a hotspot on your phone through your cell phone provider.

11.  Don’t short-change yourself to save money. If it costs you one hour of billable time per month/per user to house and manage your information and your client’s information safely and securely, then it is money well spent.

12.  Oh yeah, update to Windows 2010 if you are using PCs.

If you have questions or want suggestions for getting your firm secure, please contact us. We are more than willing to give you 30 minutes of our time at no charge.