The legal industry handles incredibly sensitive information and hackers know that – which is why it’s not a surprise that one in four law firms have experienced a security breach. From merger information to confidential acquisition details to other major contracts and business dealings, the legal industry faces the double challenge of protecting a large amount of sensitive legal information and making sure it’s properly retained and easy to access for eDiscovery. So, what can law firms do to protect data and be responsible about record-keeping? Focus on protecting any communications around sensitive information, while keeping the information in a single place. Here’s how.
Step Away from Email
Email is still a standard method of business communication for law firms and it’s also one of the biggest risks. 95% of all malware attacks and breaches begin with email. That’s because hackers know it’s easy to trick people into clicking on malicious links or falling for emails that look like they come from someone they know – and accidentally sharing sensitive information or compromising the IT network. One way to address this risk? Move away from email and opt for communication methods that are secured and can’t be accessed without authorization. You can continue to use email for basic things, like setting up a meeting or dropping quick note to someone – but if you have a policy that sensitive legal information like sharing a contract or discussing a wire transfer only occurs over secured communications, it makes it easy for employees to recognize when not to respond to an email or click on a link that’s suspicious.
Know Where Your Information is At All Times
This may seem like a no-brainer, but it’s all too easy for information to slip out of your control and end up in someone else’s hands – even while you have no idea. You may assume that end-to-end encryption has you covered, but that doesn’t actually protect sensitive communications once it reaches devices. It’s all too easy for people to accidentally send the information to the wrong person – or even send it to an outsider on purpose – like for insider trading purposes. Take steps to make sure that your communications are secured at all times – especially on devices and when backed up, so that it can’t be leaked by accident or on purpose.
Keep Information in a Single Place
When you’re hit with an eDiscovery request, you want to make sure that any sensitive information you’ve communicated is easy to access. When people are using a lot of different methods to communicate – including email, messaging and video chats – it can be hard to keep track of shared information. Standardize how sensitive information is shared – like over a single secure communications platform and make sure it’s backed up to a single place, not saved in multiple places. That will make it easy to protect and easy to retrieve for compliance purposes.
Finding a tool that makes it easy to communicate and safely store information doesn’t have to be difficult. Vaporstream makes it easy for the legal industry to communicate without fear of a third-party interfering or someone screenshotting, forwarding, or otherwise leaking information. All communication is archived to a single repository of your choice, making it seamless to protect and retrieve. See what we look like in action here.