Information on ongoing criminal cases or mergers and acquisitions are valuable to criminals interested in insider trading or subverting the course of justice, according to the NCSC’s ‘Cyber threat report: UK legal sector’, published last week.
Time pressures associated with transactions and the substantial sums being handled create attractive conditions for phishing attacks and email compromise. The high cost of disruption to legal practices, in terms of reputation, billable hours and costs to clients, make legal practices enticing to ransomware gangs looking to extort money.
Alex Bransome, chief information security officer at Doherty Associates, said: ‘While technology unlocks unprecedented efficiencies, it is also exposing the sector to new, sophisticated threats. Law firms must integrate cyber security into the DNA of their operations, making it a priority from the boardroom to the intern’s desk.’
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