It’s pointless trying to keep your business safe without first knowing what the threats are and what you can actually do to stop them.
That’s why in this article, the Sprout IT team will explain the basics of cyber security so that you can take the first steps towards keeping your solicitors’ practice or barristers’ chambers safe online.
Why is cyber security important?
Cyber security is important for exactly the same reason that you have a lock on your front door. It makes all the difference between reducing the risk of having your sensitive client information (personal and commercial) leaked or stolen and giving hackers free reign to take whatever they please from a compromised computer network.
If you are hacked, your clients will be put at risk as the distribution of their critical personal, financial, and commercial information (including bank details, invoices, tax returns, commercial secrets, etc.) is no longer within your control. Such a breach will eventually metamorphose into an outbreak of mistrust in your company among clients.
As bad as that is, with GDPR now actual law, loss of customer trust will not be the only concern with which you will have to contend. There are now hefty fines to fund as well.
How you can help protect your business
Cybersecurity has never been so important and here’s Sprout IT’s guide to what you can do to better prepare yourself for any potential risks in the future.
The Cyber Essentials Scheme
Cyber Essentials is a certification scheme run by Government that your solicitors’ practice or barristers’ chambers can join which will assure existing clients that you know how to keep your business and its sensitive information secure. If you’re currently pitching for corporate or public-sector work, many will now not consider dealing with a firm not on the scheme.
This scheme is an ideal place to start when you’re looking for a practical way to increase your awareness of the risks that you might be facing in terms of cyber security. Additionally, there is the Cyber Essentials Plus award that you can achieve by an outside expert inspection of your business to demonstrate that you meet all of the scheme’s high standards.
You can find out more about the Cyber Essentials Scheme here.
Your staff
The people that you employ are both your greatest assets and your biggest liabilities (certainly in terms of cyber security). Over half of all successful cyberattacks can still be blamed on human error. Here we list some of the things that you should be mindful of when you are considering your workforce and protecting your business from threats.
Pros
You can train your staff members to deal with cyber-attacks. They will need to be on hand to deal with any threats as they emerge as well as damage control if something does go wrong.
If two heads are better than one, then four eyes surely must be better than two. Your employees can help you spot issues that may have fallen under your IT team’s radar. This goes for both noticing a cyberattack while it’s happening and seeing any wider flaws in your company’s IT security.
Keep topping up training and checking individuals’ awareness of the issues. Reward vigilance. Demonstrate to staff how important cybersecurity is and be sure to highlight the very real consequences of failure in this area.
Cons
You need to be able to trust your employees. That’s especially true of the ones that have access to higher levels of your business’s security. If you can’t trust them, it’s like giving your car keys to a stranger. The more people that you give access to the data that you store and handle, even along with the additional security measures that you have in place, the more likely you will receive a breach.
This brings us nicely our next point. Even your most honest, trustworthy employees make mistakes – everyone’s human. This is why you should reduce the number of staff members that you allow access to your firm’s most sensitive information – the opposite of “safety in numbers” applies to data security.
To learn more about what you can do today to enable your staff to be cyber aware, read our informative white paper, Cyber Resilience & The Human Factor.
Spending doesn’t make you more secure
Unfortunately, cyber security is not a problem that you can simply throw money at to solve. There are extremely clever and advanced security software packages available that we could advice that your firm invests in however, if you don’t thoroughly train yourself and your team members, the return you may get on that investment may be minimal.