The digital world offers many opportunities for lawyers, but it also brings with it considerable risks, including ransomware attacks.
In this article, we’ll explore the potential risks that ransomware poses to your law firm, and why effective data backup is crucial to preserving the confidentiality of your clients’ sensitive information.
1. Your customers’ sensitive data is at risk :
The data used in your business is often of a confidential nature, frequently involving aspects of your customers’ private lives such as medical data, criminal records, political and religious opinions and family information, among others. Disclosure of such data may compromise the rights and freedoms of the persons concerned. This information therefore requires special protection.
2. Respect for professional secrecy is essential :
Compliance with professional secrecy, as defined by article 66-5 of the law of 31 December 1971, article 4 of the decree of 12 July 2005 and article 2 of the National Internal Regulations (RIN), and protected by article 226-13 of the French Criminal Code, requires lawyers to be more vigilant in protecting their clients’ personal data. Consequently, you must comply with the legal and regulatory obligations in force in this area.
3. Your customers’ trust is priceless :
Protecting your customers’ personal data is crucial to preserving professional secrecy. Compliance with the rules on the protection of personal data strengthens transparency and your customers’ trust in you.
By adopting effective data backup and recovery measures, you’ll be able to protect your clients, respect professional secrecy and guarantee the future of your practice in a digital world increasingly affected by ransomware attacks !
What is a ransomware attack ?
Ransomware is malicious software that encrypts a computer’s data and then demands a ransom to unlock it. For you as a lawyer, the consequences of a ransomware attack can be disastrous.
- Loss of sensitive data : You handle confidential and sensitive information about your customers on a daily basis. A ransomware attack can result in the irreversible loss of this data, which could have a catastrophic impact on your firm’s business and reputation.
- Breaches of confidentiality : Your customers’ data is protected by strict confidentiality regulations. If this data is compromised as a result of a ransomware attack, this could lead to breaches of data protection rules and serious legal consequences.
Business disruption : Ransomware can cripple your business by rendering your IT unusable, causing business delays and disruption to your customers.
What are the criteria for choosing the best data backup solution ?
- Local backup :
- Speed : Local backups and restores are faster because they don’t depend on the speed of your Internet connection.
- Confidentiality : All your data remains on your premises, to guarantee your customers the utmost confidentiality.
- Automatic backup :
- Regularity : Automatic backups can be scheduled to run regularly, ensuring your data is always protected.
- Time-saving : You no longer need to remember to run back-ups manually, saving you time.
- Outsourced backup :
- Security : Data backed up outside your practice is protected from local disasters (theft, flooding, fire, internal malicious acts, etc.).
- Scalability : You have the flexibility to easily increase storage capacity according to your needs, without the need to invest in additional hardware.
To find out more, download our white paper on best practice.
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