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Cyber enemies at the gates of law firms
As 2019 drew to an end, and raging bushfires burnt regional Australia to the ground – it was an enemy we understood, how to fight and could see. It was a battle we knew we would eventually overcome and recover from, writes Anastasios Maltezos.
Anastasios Maltezos
Australia has been born to deal with the challenges of its harsh environment – there is nothing covert or silent about the rage of Mother Nature.
The world in a brief five months has found itself fighting for its very survival against an imposing covert enemy we can neither see nor comprehend along with a dark devious shadowy force operating and working to exploit our vulnerabilities to profit when we are now at our weakest.
We have seen Australia enter a state of panic, toilet paper has become the scientific tool used to measure panic levels and hysteria – and as a metric of measurement, it is the perfect barometer.
For all its simplicity and importance as a commodity, toilet paper painted a clear picture of our psychological state – never has a commodity manufactured in Australia become almost impossible to acquire, COVID has very quickly changed and created a different world while cybercriminals are prevailing in an environment of misery and disaster.
Cybercrime has always been a growing epidemic Australia has fought to combat – but now it becomes an even more intense fight, especially for small legal practices and businesses.
The struggle to guard against cybercrime especially in a weakened environment created by a COVID global pandemic has intensified astronomically.
It’s the tsunami forming and working its way to a descending destructive force where the need to battle the onslaught of devastation is critical – it’s what we do to prevent or minimise the havoc wreaked which is most important.
Australia’s legal practice like all businesses is now in a battle against the intangibility of two covert enemies – enemies we are unable to see, feel, hear or touch.
COVID and cybercriminals are the silent enemies within our gates.
Last month, Prime Minister Scott Morrison, issued a statement stating that based on advice provided to the government by its cyber security experts, “the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC), Australian organisations are currently being targeted by a sophisticated state-based cyber actor.”
It’s a threat that continues to grow and yet fails to resonate with Australian business. For whatever reason businesses fail to understand the magnitude of what is at stake, it is a dangerous path of ignorance they choose to walk.
Legal practices, like the medical fraternity, carry the most confidential of data – failing to guard against the ravages of cybercriminals only compromises the credibility of who legal practices are and what they do.
The incidents of cyber security cost Australian businesses more than $29 billion a year where people are losing an average of up to $700 to cybercrime, according to survey results released mid-2019.
Small- to medium-sized legal practices are proving to be a lucrative target for cyberattacks because many simply don’t have a robust cyber security defence to counter the attacks waged by cybercriminals.
And a glaring example is a small, family legal or accounting business. If their systems go down and lose their clientele’s data, the whole business runs the very real risk of going under.
A practice’s ability to bounce back as easily as its larger competitors are capable of doing, is almost impossible.
Cyber security companies like CyberCertified are consistently preaching the importance of being armed and protected. By undertaking self-assessment audits of a business’ cyber security armoury by using cyber security experts allows a practice to assess its cyber security setting remotely and affordably.
Knowing and understanding where a practice’s areas of weakness and concern are – allows cyber security experts to advise on how to fix them and once holes are plugged practices can rest through a proper certification process they are safe and their vaccine against the cybercrime pandemic is current.
Anastasios Maltezos is general manager of CyberCertified.
