Security
What’s New? September 2024
The King’s Speech The newly elected Labour government has had its hands full both on the domestic and international front since Sir Keir Starmer KC took office, but the King’s Speech gave some hints as to the direction of travel regarding technology regulation. Although the widely anticipated UK AI Bill has been kicked into the long grass, […]
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Pegasus spyware scandal: what lawyers need to know
Back in April 2021 I wrote an article for this newsletter about the Sunburst cyberattack, referencing a blog from Microsoft President Brad Smith in which he warned that mercenary-style technology companies, known as private sector offensive actors (PSOAs), are increasingly selling hacking tools to nation states. He specifically urged the US administration to take action […]
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Bookmarks April 2021
Cybersecurity for Lawyers is a wiki from Neil Brown of internet, tech and telecoms law firm decoded.legal. It’s a primer for lawyers on practical cybersecurity for law firms. Straightforward, no fuss, detailed but easy to follow advice – for example this on passwords. Lawtomated is a collaborative learning resource aimed at lawyer and non-lawyer alike […]
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State sponsored cyberattacks: what lawyers need to know
Sunburst: a moment of reckoning Towards the end of 2020, the National Security Agency (NSA) issued a warning, claiming that “Russian state-sponsored malicious cyber actors” had essentially hacked into a piece of network management software belonging to SolarWinds, which was installed on networks belonging to US government agencies and almost all Fortune 500 companies. Following […]
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Mitigating the risks of cyber attacks from remote working
As lockdown slowly eases, hopefully for the final time, it remains unclear to what extent the changes to the world of work forced on us by the pandemic are here to stay. Although the Government wants to encourage people back into their workplaces, two thirds of employers are planning to retain a significant degree of […]
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Online Safety Bill upcoming
We previously reported on the Online Harms White Paper in 2019, in which the government set out various proposals to reduce illegal and harmful online activity. The government has now published its full response to the consultation process. The government plans to take forward most of its original proposals, in the form of a forthcoming […]
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Why implement https?
HTTPS stands for Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure, the secure version of http, the protocol for communicating data between your browser and the websites that you are connected to. https ensures that all such communications are encrypted. Benefits of https For several years now technical experts have highly recommended the use of https instead of […]
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What is encryption?
Encryption is a way of making data secure, so that it can only be accessed by authorised parties. Cryptographic techniques are used to render information unintelligible to any third parties whilst it is being stored on an electronic device such as a laptop or smartphone, or during its transit from sender to recipient over the […]
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Apps and Cyber Crime – avoiding the security hazards of working on the go
Clients are demanding Apps for real-time communications, lawyers need them for remote working. But how do we improve the security of apps in order to prevent any data security breaches? Law firms are prime targets for cyber-attacks due to the amount of money they hold for clients and the sensitive information they control. Clearly, remote […]
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IT security for barristers
Although written for barristers, the recommendations below would broadly apply to any lawyer practising without the support of an IT team. As a practising barrister, your working life is probably busy, hectic and mentally exhausting, and the thought of having to consider the security of your IT equipment is more than likely not one that […]
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10 steps to becoming cyber resilient
Most legal practices have yet to get to grips with the idea of “cyber resilience” but it is a strength that they urgently need to acquire now. Only then can a legal practice develop and deliver new IT-supported service propositions that can add significant value to services for clients, introducers and business partners. The need […]
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