Good practice last year isn’t good enough anymore.
Even cyber-insurance providers are getting more selective before accepting cover, or worse, before paying claims.
With the number of claims skyrocketing insurers are increasingly asking, “What did you do to protect yourself from the obvious and known risk from cyberhackers?”
The levels of protection you put in place 1 or 2 years ago probably aren’t adequate for the threats today. They are evolving so rapidly.
So what can you do?
Hackers aren’t waiting for you to make a decision to put protections in place.
They are spending every waking moment trying to find new ways of stealing your data. They have set themselves up as businesses to do evil. They hire the best and brightest talent, and have the latest tech – simply because it’s worth it. Its organised crime and these guys are the mafia of the modern age.
We see continuous hacks on most of our clients. These are attempts to penetrate their firewalls, or guess their passwords on Office 365. We see fake webpages through phishing attempts, and we see techniques to harvest password reset questions by asking for favourite teachers, or first cars, or favourite band on platforms like FaceBook.
That’s why your cyber-insurance and business continuity insurance providers will be starting to ask more demanding questions when you renew your cover. They are well aware of the risk and they want to know that you have taken all reasonable steps.
You need to be able to reassure them that you have:
- deep endpoint protection
- a penetration and vulnerability assessment
- data governance that is fit for purpose
- awareness programmes for all users and verification
- dark web monitoring
- multi-factor authentication and complex passwords
and so much more – the very items we have included in our KARE for Security services.
The question for you, and your insurer, is what level of protection is appropriate for your organisation so your insurer will cover you if you need to claim? That is why we have two levels of cyber-protection, and, because this isn’t static, it is why we keep investing and researching additional tools to help defend you from harm.
The Hackers are turning up their attacks on you – are you turning up your defences to match?
One quote we saw recently that rang true was:
“A cybercriminal only has to be lucky once, while a defender has to be lucky every minute of every day.”
What’s your next step? We’ve created a simple 9-point checklist to help you navigate the cyber-risk landscape and find the right solution for you.
Who really controls your firm’s IT systems and your data?
You know who owns and leases your operational equipment, or your buildings, plant and other physical facilities. Can you say who controls your IT? How flexible is your IT supply chain to meet your partnership's ongoing needs? Given how vital IT is to your legal...
IT is more than silicon – have you ever stress tested the human side of your firm’s I.T?
Every chain relies on every link, and the stronger each link, then the stronger the chain - hence the saying about the weakest link. Your IT chain has people - we need to think about them - the IT staff, the users, and of course the management structure around them....
Are you maximising your firm’s technology investment?
When your firm last made a significant IT investment, you had a clear understanding of why you made it and the return you were seeking to achieve. You might even have had to justify it to a partners' committee and make various assurances that it was the best thing...
Are the appropriate IT Governance controls in place to protect your Firm’s Value?
In most organisations, and law firms are no exception,, IT has grown organically, meeting business needs as they arise. Those demands have come through thick and fast from almost all areas of the organisation's operations. IT has become integral to almost all...
Obligations to the firm’s Partners and Management
Are you meeting your obligations to your firm's stakeholders? Until relatively recently a law firm's management committee typically only got involved with IT when the management wanted to proceed with a major capital investment - a system refresh, new practice...
2021 Trend Reports confirms cyber-security advice
How many people DON’T report ransomware attacks? It’s too early to see the Q42021 results from CertNZ but their Q3 report tells there were 2,072 incidents that they responded to in Q3 and fraud/scam’s were up 25%. Their report confirms that the very risks we have been...
Hackers Caught! Millions Seized
Crime doesn’t always pay. The FSB reports (if you can read Russian) that they have taken down the “Revil” band of hackers. These are the people that have caused absolute havoc, from disrupting the US oil pipelines, to the Kaseya attack that took out businesses all...
Kinetics COVID Policy
Our Covid-19 approach. A number of clients and partners are asking us about our Covid-19 policy, so we thought we'd share it! Like many workplaces, we've extensively consulted our team and worked through their range of views. Our workplace requires all visitors...
5 quick tips to help you save time every day in 2022
Who knows what 2022 will bring. We’re as happy as the next person to make predictions but we’d just predict we’d be wrong! About the only certain guess is that we’ll be under more pressure and with that, it makes sense to share a few everyday IT tips. 5...
Do you need to worry about the “Log4J” Cyber Security Zero-Day breach?
Mainstream media is abuzz with the latest software vulnerability. It is in a commonly used component called Log4J 2. This component is in widespread use and the risk is real. This is a fast paced and quickly changing alert. At the time of writing, the immediate...