LegalEdge had a remote workforce back when it was still a choice. For ten years, LegalEdge has made in-house legal services accessible to small businesses and start-ups using a uniquely flexible model and a completely remote team of lawyers.
We sat down with Helen to learn more about her security needs and how she uses the CyberSmart software with her remote team.
What were the security and/or compliance challenges you were looking to overcome?
For the most part, the challenges we faced stemmed from the fact that all our lawyers work flexibly. On the one hand, with all that is going on now, this has put us in a fortunate position to continue business as usual. However, with everyone working from home or the coffee shop as well as using their own personal devices, this has the potential of leaving many loose ends that threaten our company’s security – a fairly unique challenge that may not be unique for long, and which CyberSmart really worked with us on.
How is security important to your organisation?
As a law firm, we’re obviously incredibly risk averse – Therefore, security has always been important to our company and is something we actively wanted to get better at. Unlike a lot of businesses, most of the people we work with are freelancers, though we have some employed staff. So, we wanted to ensure that we had that extra layer of protection, particularly as they all use their own devices.
How did you discover CyberSmart and why did you select it as your solution?
I’m on a COO network with a lot of fast growth tech companies, which has been a fantastic network for me and for a lot of the COOs on it too. That is how we heard about CyberSmart . There was a lot of discussion around GDPR at the time. The guys at CyberSmart came in and did a presentation for us. As is typical in our industry, we are fairly slow to update on tech, but we just really liked the way CyberSmart did things and how they talked about their product. Because we’ve got a fairly unique setup, it was really important for us to up our game on cybersecurity: they were just really good and helpful for us in what otherwise could have been a bit of a painful process.
Which of CyberSmart’s capabilities are most valuable to you and why?
Just that extra layer of security for our remote workforce. Our model was always flexible, but the CyberSmart guys have really enabled us to embed security into this flexibility. When I used to travel on the tube and log in at the stations to check my emails, there was always that worry that I wasn’t secure. Now I know that I’ve got the level of security that I can have, or that I need to have, to protect myself . You hear about hacking, but you don’t really worry about it until something bad happens – now we don’t have to.
When I used to travel on the tube and log in at the stations to check my emails, there was always that worry that I wasn’t secure… You hear about hacking, but you don’t really worry about it until something bad happens – now we don’t have to.
It has helped us up our game. With less tech-savvy people, you’re never sure what is or is not okay. We might think we’re secure and actually not be. CyberSmart has eliminated this ambiguity for us.
I’m working from a MacBook; some people are working from old PCs… everybody’s on different devices, including iPhones. Regardless, the guys at CyberSmart have all our bases covered. We have some IT support now, but we didn’t when we first started this journey and they were there every step of the way to help us implement it. In order to get the Cyber Essentials certification, we had to pass an important questionnaire.
This required us to put in place a fairly complex policy that explained to our people what they had to do or stop doing. For example, they could not log into their devices from a coffee shop without a secure connection. But then we brought in a VPN, which helped to resolve that issue and the team at CyberSmart worked with us to make sure we were doing all the right stuff along the way.
What kind of cost savings or benefit have you found from increased security?
It was important for us to do better with our cybersecurity, so whilst it is an investment, the cost is reasonable for a business of our size and nature. We liked what CyberSmart offered and how they conducted themselves; the fact that they came recommended from another business we knew was also very reassuring.
What advice can you give someone seeking security solutions around remote working?
Give CyberSmart a call! They have been a hugely helpful partner and their customer service is outstanding. We have clients who say: “I need somebody who’s got my back on these things” and that’s when you outsource to the right people for the right price; that’s exactly what these guys have done for us.
Learn more about how to secure your remote workforce using CyberSmart’s continuous compliance software.
