Tech Tips

• Citation: Vol. 38 No. 1 Pg. 60
• Publication year: 2015
• Pages: 60
• topic: Business of Law

Tech Tips Vol. 38 No. 1 Pg. 60 Wyoming Bar Journal February, 2015

Blake A. Klinkner, J. President, Young Lawyers Section.

Protecting Your Law Office Against Data Breaches and Other Cyber Threats

2014 was not a good year for cyber security. Last year, a number of prominent businesses, and their customers, suffered major data breaches including eBay, JP Morgan, Target, Home Depot, and most famously, Sony Pictures Entertainment.^[1] Hacked information in these cases included personnel records, bank account numbers, credit card numbers, Social Security numbers, account usernames and passwords, confidential email communications, unreleased movie scripts and full-length films, and other highly sensitive information. At least one of these retailers offered to purchase identity theft protection for all customers who shopped within its stores, and all of them had to warn customers that their personal information might be in the hands of cybercriminals. At the time of this writing, at least seven class action lawsuits have been filed against Sony for claims relating to its data breach, which has been widely attributable to North Korean operatives.^[2]

The last major cyber attack of 2014, striking at a steel mill in Germany, failed to make headline news but has rattled the cyber security community for good reason. This attack, which disabled blast furnace controls and prevented shutdown, resulted in massive damage and marks the second confirmed case in history where a cyber attack caused the physical destruction of machinery.^[3] The cyber attackers, who remain unknown, gained access to control systems after mill employees opened emails, disguised to appear as if they were sent from trusted sources, which caused malicious software to download onto the system and then allowed hackers to take control of the furnace operations.

2014 also showed that law...