Lawyers and law firms take notice: cyber criminals might specifically be targeting you because they want your data or the money in your trust account. Law firms, even small ones, are appealing targets to cyber criminals for three reasons:

• Law firms have large amounts of sensitive and confidential information that could prove to be extremely valuable.
• Law firms often have large sums of money in their bank accounts.
• Law firms tend to have weaker security protection in place on their networks and systems.

Because information on cybercrime tools and techniques is readily available online, even non-technical people sometimes pursue malicious cyber activities. They will use every tool at their disposal to attack law firms, including:

• Sending spam and phishing messages
• Installing malware to create a back door into a firm’s computers
• Searching for weaknesses in security configurations so that they can exploit them
• Attacking an attorney’s home computer as a way of hacking into his office system

Cyber crime is real, and a very present danger for law firms, and all firms to work to understand the risks they are exposing themselves to so that they can reduce the likelihood of a data breach.

Insurance Coverage and Cyber Crime

Many law firms believe that cyber liability risks are already covered by legal professional liability (LPL) insurance, but while LPL affords some coverage for cyber liability risks, the costs of immediate notification of all parties potentially affected by the data breach, providing credit monitoring to affected parties, investigating the incident, and managing the firm’s reputation throughout the event are generally not covered.

Cyber liability coverage from USI Affinity provides affordable protection for law firms that goes far beyond traditional LPL coverage to address every aspect of a data breach, including:

• Forensic and legal assistance and expense coverage
• Coverage for response costs
• Regulatory defense and penalties coverage
• Identify theft-related fraud resolution services

To learn more about cyber liability coverage, contact Rich Balasa.