Approximately 80 percent of companies of all sizes reported encountering cybersecurity-related incidents in 2018, and cost businesses roughly $3.62 million per breach. In 2017 alone, about one in three of the 540 cybersecurity incidents and the 132 breaches occurred because of internal threats or employee errors; four percent of people opened phishing emails and clicked the links in the same year.
In the legal field, keeping your clients’ information private is vital; breaking their trust by having their information compromised is not an option. Lawyers often need to access case and client information from anywhere, but if the stored data is not secure, they run the risk of being hacked.
By leveraging or outsourcing IT to “the cloud,” security measures are drastically improved. Fortunately, there is IT support for law firms to help keep your information safe, secure, and private. In fact, the American Bar Association recommends that lawyers work with IT experts to help protect client data.
Offerings and Protocols to Consider
According to Tech Show, the general services usually provided by an outsourced IT provider include:
- Managed firewall
- Intrusion detection
- Virtual private network (VPN)
- Vulnerability scanning
- Anti-virus services
- Security monitoring
- Security audits
- Threat detection
- Best practices consulting
- Disaster recovery, business continuity, business resilience, backup support
- Regulatory compliance
- Risk management
- Training and education
- 24/7 Help desk support
With all these offerings, let’s break down the top 3 reasons a law firm would want to leverage an IT support firm.
Enhanced Data Backups
Original endpoint manufacturers, also known as OEM, are heavily pushing the concept of automation throughout the industry. They’re doing this for a few key reasons:
- Your data backups become policy-driven so that updates and backups are rolled out without the manual process behind them. Doing so ensures backups aren’t missed and mitigates the aspect of ‘human-error’.
- If a breach occurs, you have duplicate copies of your data ensuring that your business isn’t crippled by the devastation of a data loss event.
- Ensured compliance. Law firms handle a significant amount of sensitive user data, to that end compliance regulations are strict, and fines are heavy if not met.
Increased Data Security
When looking for Outsourced security providers or managed IT support for law firms, security should be at the forefront of your search.
To ensure that your client’s information is protected, and that your firm isn’t incurring large fines or penalties from mishandling data, firms need to leverage next generation security protocols that reach beyond traditional security practices such as a firewall. These practices could include:
- Managed Detection: ability to easily detect threats before you even know they arise.
- Managed Response: putting in place the proper security protocols to effectively respond to threats.
- Artificial intelligence/machine learning: next generation practices that leverage the power automation, data analysis, & policy-based execution.
- Continuous/ongoing monitoring:
In 2019 alone, ransomware attacks leveraging file-locking malware more than double compared the previous year as hackers adapted their attack methods and were able to receive more generous ransoms.
Organizations from all industries are subject to these threats and will continue to see hackers become smarter and find creative ways to grow their desired ransoms, posing a significant threat to those that aren’t prepared for a cyber-attack event.
Lower Costs and Availability
Building out an IT team in-house that can handle your IT infrastructure management and data security is costly and time-consuming. The top challenges we’ve heard from customers that have handled IT internally include:
- Costly training
- Employee turnover
- Lack of expertise on new technology
- Compromised data security
- Unpredictable costs
By leveraging an IT firm to handle these challenges, you enable a predictable cost-model with an enhanced technical skillset to manage and protect your data.
Further enhancing the value-add of an outsourced IT provider, they work off an ‘always-available’ model to ensure they’re there when you need them most. Whether that be a network issue or hardware failure, you’re able to reach someone immediately to rectify an issue.
The Size of Your Firm Doesn’t Matter
Contrary to what most believe, regardless of the vertical that you work in, the size of your firm doesn’t matter when it comes to the threat of a data loss event.
From Cyber-attacks, human error, or natural events, your firm can be exposed to business devastating threats if not prepared.
Reach out today for a free network/security assessment and to see if an IT support for law firms provider can benefit your business.
