The annual audit myth: Why law firms cannot treat cyber security as a tick box exercise
With cyber criminals deploying increasingly sophisticated methods of attack organizations must go the extra mile to protect their data and avoid costly financial and reputational damage. With new threats emerging each day, these risks cannot be taken lightly. This is particularly true for corporate legal teams and law firms who are prime targets for cyber attackers given the amount of sensitive client information that they hold.
According to IBM’s Cost of a Data Breach 2022, the average consolidated total cost of a data breach in the UK is £3.36 million, up from £2.37 million in 2015. Given the financial and reputational damage a data breach can cause, legal teams and law firms cannot treat cyber security as a tick box exercise. However, there is a tendency to fall into a key myth of cyber security: "We are doing fine as long as we pass our annual security audit."
Driving greater legal efficiency with automation
The term 'time is money' is particularly true for law firms. In fact, productivity is critical to their success especially with the growing popularity of fixed-fee billing, where every minute counts against profitability.
With a finite amount of time and growing workloads, law firms of all sizes need to find better ways to become more efficient and make lawyer’s lives easier. Doing this will not only help them to become more profitable but will also improve the legal experience for both employees and clients.
Adapt or die -- It's time for law firms to finally embrace technology
Over the past few years, we’ve seen a growing number of law firms driving differentiation through technology. Some legal companies are seizing the opportunity to achieve greater efficiencies and competitive advantage by adopting the latest tech, but this is still far from the industry standard.
Data from PWC’s annual UK law firm survey shows the average spend as a percentage of fee income on legal technologies continues to be low, at 0.5-0.9 percent. Despite this, the research shows 'improving the use of technology' ranks as the top priority for legal businesses over the next year. So, law firms are keen to implement new digital solutions that support legal functions, but they’re simply not investing the necessary resources.
New UK data laws set to make annoying cookie pop-ups crumble
Website pop-ups asking you to consent to cookies have become a regular -- if irritating -- feature for European internet users since the introduction of GDPR in 2018.
As part of a post Brexit shake up of data law the UK government has announced that its Data Reform Bill will cut down on the number of times these 'user consent' boxes will be shown.
Organizations will struggle to meet cyber incident disclosure deadlines
In the light of President Biden's new legislation requiring critical infrastructure organizations to disclose cyber incidents to the government within 72 hours, new research from BitSight shows how unprepared many are to meet the strict disclosure requirements.
Based on analysis of more than 12,000 publicly disclosed cyber incidents between 2019 and 2022, the research finds it takes the average organization 105 days to discover and disclose an incident from the date it occurred.
Through a glass darkly: Nike sues Lululemon over mirror
In my bio below you'll see a picture of me sporting my new digital camouflage Lululemon Surge Warm Half-Zip that had arrived the night before writing this. Inside the box was a card trying to sell me something called Lululemon Mirror. The image on the card was very similar to what Lululemon has on their site (see image at the top).
My first reaction was "This looks like something Nike would make. I wonder if it'll claim to own the IP rights."
Washington cannot let Amazon water-down consumer protection legislation
The holiday season is a reminder that with more Americans than ever heading online to do their shopping, lawmakers must continue taking action to prevent consumers from falling prey to internet scammers. That’s why it was welcome news when Amazon recently reversed course on its longstanding opposition to bipartisan consumer protection legislation in Congress that would require third-party online marketplaces to verify independent sellers, with the goal of reducing counterfeits and stolen goods from these platforms.
But while Amazon’s public change of heart seemingly paves the way for the eventual passage of the bill, known as the INFORM Consumers Act, lawmakers must ensure that the retail giant and other tech companies do not work behind the scenes to water down the legislation and render it toothless. Counterfeits pose great harm to consumers and small third-party sellers, and Congress must pass strong, comprehensive enforcement mechanisms to adequately protect both groups.
Businesses would be less likely to pay ransoms if payments had to be reported
A new report finds that although 37 percent of respondents would pay a ransom, more than half of this group (57 percent) would reverse that decision if they had to publicly report the payment.
The Ransomware Disclosure Act, a bill currently before the US Senate, would require companies to report ransomware payments within 48 hours and so could have a dampening effect on the crime's profitability.
Surprise, surprise! Microsoft exec says the government is spying on you
Intelligence agencies may have begun life as a good idea -- a way to keep their respective countries safe -- and in the beginning we mostly trusted them. But their overt secrecy soon became apparent with things like the famous Roswell incident and the best known "secret" location in the world -- Area 51.
But there’s much more to the secretiveness than just speculation of little green men. If we didn’t already suspect as much, Edward Snowden showed us a lot of what went on behind-the-scenes in these clandestine agencies.
FBI hands over four million compromised email addresses from Emotet to Have I Been Pwned
Three months ago, law enforcement agencies from across the planet worked together to bring down Emotet, one of the world's most infamous botnets.
This action resulted in huge numbers of compromised email addresses being obtained by the various agencies, and the FBI has now offered these to Have I Been Pwned (HIBP) to make it easier for anyone to check if their information was harvested and used by Emotet.
The challenges of navigating breach notification rules [Q&A]
New and updated privacy legislation is being launched around the world and a key component of these acts is breach notification requirements, which mean a business is required to notify individuals when their information falls into the hands of an attacker.
We spoke to Ralph Nickl, founder and CEO of Canopy Software to find out what what enterprises and consumers need to know about these laws and the challenges that compliance brings.
UK security pros worry about breaking the law when defending against attacks
A new report released today by the CyberUp Campaign and techUK has found that 80 percent of UK security professionals worry about breaking the law in the process of defending against cyberattacks.
The Computer Misuse Act (1990) is the law that governs the activities of cyber security professionals in the UK and the survey finds a near-unanimous (93 percent) belief that the Act -- written before the advent of modern cyber security -- does not represent a piece of legislation fit for this century.
Security professionals warn UK government over outdated cybercrime legislation
The UK's Computer Misuse Act came into effect 30 years ago, but security professionals are warning that it is no longer fit for purpose and may even be hindering their efforts.
A coalition of businesses, trade bodies, lawyers and think tanks from across the cybersecurity industry have today taken the unprecedented step of uniting to write a letter to the prime minister urging him to reform the law.
Compliance requirements threaten to become a major burden for business
More than half of companies questioned in a new survey are spending 40 percent or more of their IT security budgets on compliance.
The research from Coalfire, a provider of cybersecurity advisory and assessment services, in conjunction with consulting firm Omida, also reveals that nearly 60 percent of companies view compliance as a barrier to enter new markets and prepare news services to meet compliance requirements.
Law enforcement agencies struggle to get to grips with digital intelligence
Law enforcement agencies have a growing reliance on digital intelligence with some 90 percent of cases now involving some form of digital device or cloud service.
A new report from digital intelligence solutions specialist Cellebrite collected date from over 2,000 law enforcement agency personnel, in over 110 countries to compile a report benchmarking the sector's day-to-day challenges.
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