The exposure to law and accounting firms threatening their very existence from Cyber Crime has never been greater. Questions you need to answer is that if you have the things that cyber criminals want, do you have insurance coverage to protect you in cases where cyber criminals take?
Information that cybercriminals want:
Payroll Account Information- Think of the data contained in your payroll accounts; names and address of all employees, their social security numbers and birth dates. With that information a cybercriminal can mimic any of your employees and steal their identities.
Banking credentials—If a thief can figure out your banking credentials and piece them together, it gives them the ability to impersonate an authorized user on the account. Then in a matter of a minutes an IOLTA account, operating account, trust account and/or payroll account is drained.
Sensitive data of Clients and Vendors-- Depending on the type of law a firm practices, the data theft may include; personal data such as dates of birth, social security numbers, driver’s license numbers, credit card information, medical records, legal records, accounting records, tax records and/or other information entrusted to the organization cost the firm? Release of this information can open up the organization to violation of HIPPA, Granm-Leach-Billey Act, or other state privacy legislation that can open up the firm to law suits for damages.
The above information that helps thieves assume someone else’s identity are valuable pieces of information. In the cyber underground, they can go for anywhere from $10 to $300 per record, depending on its value. Does your firm have any of this type of information stored on technology? In addition client information lost will cause malpractice claims.
Client secrets-Clients products and services are valuable information and data such as: secret formulas, design specs, and well-defined processes. There is a market for this information.
Emails-If you have corresponded with your financial institution via email, the chances are that your account will eventually be used in an impersonation attempt to siphon funds from your bank account. Have you ever conducted business on your email that you don’t want criminals to have access to?
Access to your computer network-Using your unprotected network to launch attacks against others—perhaps one of your top clients or vendors—is a favorite technique for cyber attackers. They will expose the weakest link to their end target and literally work their way up.
When larger corporate clients and vendors visit your infected site, the malware secretly attacks that person’s computer and infects the organization. This is known as a watering hole attack. How would you handle this If you were attacked and it impacted your clients?
Your reputation-Targeted reputation damage is a serious concern for small to mid-size firms. In fact, damaging attacks, whether data theft or destruction by rogue employees, has moved up to the third leading cause of loss according for Cyber Liability & Data Breach Insurance Claims
While L Squared Insurance agency cannot prevent these types of thief’s from occurring. L Squared can work with you to make sure that you have the proper insurance coverage. L Squared access to the Insurance markets to provide coverage for Cyber Liability Insurance, Crime Insurance, Business Owners Coverage and Errors & Omissions Insurance. All of these insurance coverages are needed to properly protect a law firm.