The big news of the week in the cybersecurity world was the NotPetya ransomware pandemic, which hit lots of sectors in lots of countries. One of the victims was DLA Piper, a global corporate lawyer.
DLA Piper has thousands of lawyers around the world and represents a number of large corporations, so having their system infected with ransomware has impacted business litigation, which could have a trickle-down effect on financial sectors.
For example, if two companies are working on a merger and the important documents are inaccessible due to ransomware, the merger process effectively comes to a standstill. The merger can’t go forward without starting from scratch.
While the medical field has seen a huge share of cyberattacks in recent years, cybersecurity experts and analysts have long warned that law firms are another ripe sector for hackers. Law firms have all kinds of private, sensitive data, including details about their clients, trade secrets, potential deals between businesses, and more.
Current law doesn’t require the stringent security you see in the medical and financial fields, nor do most law firms have the financial resources to invest as much into cybersecurity as some of their clients do. That said, with the hacking forecast for law firms being what it is, it would behoove law firms of all sizes to get ahead of the game and start taking cybersecurity seriously.