WindTalker Blog

At a recent meeting of lawyers at a local bar association, the topic of discussion was cyber and information security.

In “When Key Employees Quit: 5 Things You Must Do to Keep Control of Critical Data,” Michael Ciaramitaro and Sarah Brown, both of Inventus, point out the number one vulnerability for most companies: “Organizations today rely heavily upon technology and electronically stored information – and when employees leave, there’s always a risk that they’ll take some information or data with them when they go, either inadvertently or on purpose.”

In her 6/26/19 article for Legal Tech News, “Can Cloud Providers Calm Legal’s Apprehensions,” Victoria Hudgins, observes: “As cloud computing becomes more popular, some law firms and corporate legal departments aren’t jumping fully on the bandwagon.”

Sue Reisinger reported in Corporate Counsel that, “As Cyberattacks on Business Grow, General Counsel Are 'Thirsty' for More Details.” This is great news! When a profession is thirsty for details – for knowledge - solutions follow, and in the typhoon of cybercrime happening today, thirst for solutions is exactly what is needed.

Today, security is top of mind for many in the legal profession. The EU’s GDPR, now one-year-old, certainly grabbed our attention and California’s similar CPPA, set to take effect early next year, has increased awareness. While the news has extensively covered major data breaches, it is easy for lawyers, law firms, in-house counsel, and their staffs to dismiss exposure to those occurrences because we typically do not collect large volumes of data in our day-to-day practices.

In his 3/8/17 article, “Rising cost of data breaches to $2.1 trillion by 2019…” Luke Irwin of IT Governance ominously wrote: “[We] found an astounding figure of 3.1 billion records leaked in 2016, conservatively. We also discovered an infiltration of law firms’ email worth $4 million stolen [and] data breaches anticipated to be at 2.1 trillion by 2019, in less than 2 years from now.”

Despite some discernible progress in privacy protection since the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was enacted one year ago, in America it’s practically non-existent. In a Microsoft blog post, Corporate VP & Deputy General Counsel, Julie Brill recounted the progress that has been made since GDPR’s adoption, concluding with a predictable call for further progress to be made in the year to come, including adoption of uniform federal legislation similar to the EU GDPR.

Misery loves company, you could say, but when you are the guardian at the gate, this may be company you don’t want to keep. In “Highlights of Verizon’s 2019 Data Breach Investigations Report,” Sharon Nelson, takes on and highlights Verizon’s most recent survey. In short, the news is not good for anyone in general, and professionals in particular.

The noted authority, Sharon D. Nelson, Esq., recently reported in her Ride the Lightning Blog: “Bank Sued Over Court Filing Containing Lawyers’ Personal Information,”  a thorny bank litigation case that serves to highlight the critical importance of courts and litigators coming together to jointly adopt state-of-the-art infosecurity software and protocols.

In an article by Victoria Hudgins, writing for LegalTechNews.com, “Sink or Swim: Law Firms Need to Leverage, Understand Tech to Survive,” stated, “For law firms and their in-house partners to survive and thrive, differentiating services and analyzing big data will be key, while understanding and harnessing technology are the first big steps, according to a Wolters Kluwer survey.”