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Damian Alderson advises law firms to apply appropriate cybersecurity measures against cybercriminals to ensure data security

Nowadays, many law firms operate in the online world so that they can create enough exposure for themselves and attract more clients. That being said, your clients entrust you with their sensitive information and personal matters, which can make your firm a primary target for cybercriminals. 

Sensitive data of any sort is valuable to hackers because it can be sold to an interested party over the dark part of the Internet. 

Knowing that your company is, indeed, a potential target for data breaches and other security threats, you need to do something about it. Protecting both your company data and the data of your clients is, therefore, of the utmost importance. 

But how do you do that? The most efficient way is to implement proper cybersecurity measures that will successfully protect your law firm from cybercriminals. With that in mind, here are a few ways to keep your law firm secure from cyberattacks. 

Protect your accounts

It's no secret that law firms today leverage modern technology to enhance their business efficiency. That means using various tools, software and platforms to help you out. That said, every account you use for such tools needs to be adequately protected or cybercriminals can easily gain access to them and through your tools, they can gain access to your company's entire network. 

The best way to approach the situation is to use strong passwords for your company accounts. It's a small and simple thing to do but it's also very effective at keeping hackers at bay. Here are a few things you can do to both strengthen your passwords and protect your company's accounts.

● Use passwords that are at least 12 characters long.

● Make sure your passwords contain capital letters, numbers and symbols. 

● Don't use the same password for more than one account.

● Don't save the password in digital format, instead write it down on paper.

● Change passwords every few months. 

Source: Freepik

Implement security policies 

Cybersecurity measures are not just about software solutions that will protect you from potential threats. They are also about company policies that will provide detailed guidelines regarding identifying potential threats, handling of sensitive data and ensuring that critical mistakes are avoided altogether. 

In most cases, unaware employees easily fall victim to one of the scams, such as email phishing, for example. This creates a backdoor for hackers who can seamlessly gain access to your company's network. That's why it's essential that you implement proper policies and educate employees about cybersecurity threats. 

There are various cybersecurity courses online that can help your employees identify and handle security threats. The more aware your employees are, the less likely they are to fall victim to scams and other potential threats. 

Moreover, company policies allow you to implement a strict protocol everyone needs to follow when handling sensitive information. That way, employees are less likely to make a mistake that cybercriminals can exploit to breach your company's network. 

Use security software

An integral part of any cybersecurity measure is security software. These software solutions protect your computers and your network from malicious programs that hackers use to infect your devices so that they can steal information or gain access to your data. 

A good example of this malicious software is ransomware which is particularly dangerous for law firms. That said, hackers can steal your data and hold it hostage per se until you agree to pay a ransom to get it back. However, even if you agree to pay the ransom, there's no guarantee that hackers will release the hold of your data. 

That's why security software, such as anti-ransomware, anti-virus, anti-malware and others are crucial for every law firm today. There are various security solutions out there and the key is to find the solution that will meet your needs. 

Prepare for the worst

Regardless of how good your cybersecurity measures are, there's still a chance that someone might succeed in breaching your defenses. The best thing to do is to adequately prepare if such a situation should ever happen to your law firm. 

Should a data breach actually happen, the only thing you can do is fix any damage as soon as possible and prevent the threat from spreading further. Here are a few things you can do to contain the situation.

● Create regular backups of your data.

● Have a recovery plan ready.

● Create a plan for data breach and test it.

● Mimic a fake security attack to test your firm's readiness and responsiveness. 

● Detect any potential vulnerability in your security measures and fix it as soon as possible.

Ensuring that your law firm is secured is not an easy task. However, it's very important that you don't neglect the issue because many businesses never recover from a cyber attack. That's why it's essential that you're proactive about implementing proper security measures for your law firm.