Getting cyber security right should be a priority for all modern businesses, especially after a 2017 study by Oxford Economics found that cyber security breaches in the UK cost businesses investors £42bn. Jonathan Swan, operations and IT director at Roythornes Solicitors, questions what can be done to ensure your customers’ data is protected.
There has been a fear about customer data protection within the legal sector for quite some time now, after several high-profile cases of ransomware attacks at major firms consecutively hit the headlines. It is estimated that the average FTSE 100 company is now £120m worse off after an incident it is therefore more imperative than ever to ensure that your customers’ data is protected from the offset
It is also important to remember that whilst advancement in technological defences continues, so too does the ability of cyber criminals to take advantage of new or exposed vulnerabilities – the risk is ever changing.
At Roythornes we have been working hard on a ‘prevention is better than the cure’ approach to cyber security and continue to implement measures intended to reduce the risks of security breaches including the use of cyber security experts to test systems, people and processes for weaknesses.
As a law firm, ensuring that our clients can trust us is critical to our business. Recently we achieved ISO27001 certification, the international standard for information security. This provides a management framework to help maintain and continuously improve the confidentiality, integrity and availability of our information systems.
We believe that having this certification will help further instil client confidence in us as a firm and provide a higher degree of assurance in the governance of our systems and client data.
2018 will also see GDPR come into effect from May meaning now is the time to ensure your systems are secured and compliant in their entirety. It’s important to have contingency plans in place and train staff to spot the tell-tale signs of a potential breach and ways to avoid them.
