Yesterday, BigLaw firm Troutman Pepper suffered a cybersecurity incident resulting in the shutdown of their network.
The fact that the attorneys were forced to use personal email accounts and locally saved documents for more than a day shows that despite all the talk about data protection, the unnoticed effect of a cyber breach typically involves leaving the firm technologically stranded for protracted periods of time while tech professionals perform the clean up.
After this issue is resolved, the company will have a new logistical challenge in making sure all those emails are handled in accordance with the company’s document preservation policy. Businesses require a strategy for all the challenges that a breach and service outage bring about – they need a secure safe haven communications platform.
Using personal accounts and consumer messaging apps for business purposes are not secure and present many privacy and compliance concerns with legal advice not being recorded for evidence recall. Insecure communication methods present substantial privacy challenges for the legal sector. Private merger/acquisition information, client-attorney confidential conversations, and legal strategy are just a few examples of intercepted mobile communications that have been used to the hackers’ advantage – and in this case where these types of conversations are happening insecurely or not happening at all significantly decreases the effectiveness and efficiency of law firms.
How to prevent a total tech shutdown
It would be incredibly advantageous for a law firm to invest in a secure communications app for handling internal conversations and client matters. This system can be configured to integrate with pre-existing DMS systems to ensure all conversations remain secure and compliant.
When all other systems are down and unreachable, having a secure communications platform as a safe haven network is crucial to ensure business continuity.
Salt Communications has experience working with law firms and clients in other industries and has developed a highly secure systems that offer the firm full control over their own private communications network. The system’s general setup has been made to be simple to use, easy to deploy, and it is available both as SaaS and on-premise software with the option of having a dedicated single-tenant SaaS instance which is becoming more popular for safe haven communication requirements.
To trial the best in class feature set for the legal sector email info@saltcommunications.com.
About Salt Communications
Salt Communications is a multi-award winning cyber security company providing a fully enterprise-managed software solution giving absolute privacy in mobile communications. It is easy to deploy and uses multi-layered encryption techniques to meet the highest of security standards. Salt Communications offers ‘Peace of Mind’ for Organisations who value their privacy, by giving them complete control and secure communications, to protect their trusted relationships and stay safe. Salt Communications is headquartered in Belfast, N. Ireland, for more information visit Salt Communications.