When you stick your head in the sand, you get a lousy tasting “sand”wich

The almost overly stale cliché that it is not good to stick your head in the sand applies to so many topics. But for lawyers, or at least a large number of them, mention technology and they want to scream “na na na na na” and ignore you. But more and more, sticking their heads in the sand won’t help lawyers. Lawyers are now bigger targets for cyberattacks, which is the point I highlight in my column in the May 1st issue of The Legal Intelligencer/Pennsylvania Law Weekly. The column, “Law Firms Must Be Proactive to Prevent Cyberattacks,” begins with a quiz, asking whether the readers know what these items are:

  • Back door/trap door
  • Cracks
  • DNS poisoning
  • Eavesdropping
  • Hackers
  • IP spoofing
  • Malware
  • Man-in-the-middle spoofing
  • Network sniffing
  • Password cracking
  • Phishing
  • Ransomware
  • Replay attacks
  • Social engineering
  • Spam
  • Spyware
  • System penetration
  • System tampering
  • TCP/IP hijacking
  • Trojan
  • Tunneling
  • Viruses
  • Website defacement
  • Worms

I bet most of us fail the test, unless we cheat and look on our smartphones.

That’s my point, technology is moving forward, and lawyers and their firms must also do so to avoid becoming the next victims of cyberattacks.

My law firm, the Law Offices of Daniel J. Siegel, LLC, and my consulting firm, Integrated Technology Services, LLC, help lawyers prepare for and to address the practical, legal and ethical issues they face. Even attacks on those smartphones.

But if what I say doesn’t scare you, consider the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which has again amended the Pennsylvania Rules of Professional Conduct, to highlight that lawyers have an ethical duty to preserve confidentiality, which includes (obviously) preventing cyberattacks. Take a look at my article, and you’ll see exactly what lawyers (and all businesses) face. But if you just stick your head in the sand, keep your mouth closed tight, or you are likely to swallow an untasty “sand”wich.

 

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