Over the past 18 months, the internet has been rocked by a digital crimewave – and lawyers and law firm websites are a prime target.
Phishing attacks, ransomware assaults and data breaches have soared since the pandemic hit. The numbers tell the story: the Internet Crime Complaint Center at the FBI reported a 75 percent rise in daily digital crime when lockdowns began.
“’Cyber-criminals are developing and boosting their attacks at an alarming pace,’” says an Interpol official in this article in The Economist. “By June 30 [2020], the US Federal Trade Commission had received almost 140,000 reports since the start of the year, already nearly as many as in all the whole of 2019. And it had had more than 570,000 reports of identity theft—also almost as many as in all of last year—as criminals took advantage of the unfolding economic downturn and people’s general anxiety about the pandemic to exploit them for their personal information, credit-card numbers and banking details.”
Read “A Digital Crimewave Has Flooded the Internet,” in The Economist.
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Alta Pro Cybersecurity Video Toolkit
Chapter 1: Ten Things Every Lawyer Should Know About Cybersecurity. “Anybody can be a target, but law firms are particularly vulnerable.” (Kevin O’Hagan, O’Hagan Meyer Cyber liability counsel) View the free, one-hour webinar here.
Chapter 2: Social Engineering and Phishing Awareness. “The number of new phishing templates out there is unprecedented.” (Erich Kron, KnowBe4 Cyber prevention specialist) View the free, one-hour webinar here.
Chapter 3: Putting Cybersafety to Work in Your Practice. “You need an Incident Response Plan that kicks in when something goes wrong.” (Jay Reeves, JD, “The Risk Pro” and owner of Your Law Life) View the free, one-hour webinar here.
Chapter 4: Cybersecurity Best Practices 2021. Practical and inexpensive tips that don’t require IT expertise, from the Alta Pro Lawyers Risk Purchasing Group. View the free, one-hour webinar here.
Source: The Economist
If you practice in Wisconsin, Texas, Minnesota, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana or Michigan, you can stay on top of ethics and risk management news by being a member of Alta Pro Lawyers RPG. You’ll get access to free webinars, the Pro Practice Playbook, Reminger ProLink, Ask the Risk Pro and more. Here’s how to join.
