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By: Petronella Cybersecurity and Digital Forensics

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Craig Petronella

Latest from Attorney at Law Magazine

On February 16, Elon Musk announced that his electric car company, Tesla, would soon be allowing customers to buy their cars with Bitcoin. Up until now, the world’s most popular cryptocurrency has been mostly used as an investment product rather than a form of payment. Tesla’s move could change that. Here’s why Musk wants you to buy a Model 3 S X or Y with Bitcoin. Tesla has invested $ 1.5 billion in bitcoin. The company…
We all asked the same question. How could Russian hackers have breached U.S. government agencies’ information systems? The answer is, they simply jiggled the door handles and checked for open windows, the way a burglar might do to get into your home. In this case, the bathroom window they came through was a software update from a vendor called SolarWinds. Many federal agencies and thousands of law firms and companies worldwide use SolarWinds’ Orion software…
dodIf your law firm or your client’s company wish to capture some of the US Department of Defense’s (DOD) $600 billion annual budget, the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) will be a requirement for contract awards and will be rolled out over the next five years. CMMC v1.0 was released January 31, 2020. Revisions will be ongoing. Katie Arrington. DOD CISO, announced all DOD contractors must upload a self-assessment by December 1, 2020 due to…
You would think that people like Elon Musk and Bill Gates would have bulletproof cybersecurity. But in July, their Twitter accounts were hacked along with the accounts of Warren Buffett, Joe Biden, and Jeff Bezos. It was the kind of simple security breach that happens to businesses of all sizes every day. Simply put, someone at Twitter was tricked into giving up passwords which they were trained not to do… just like your staff is…
With meetings, conferences, and conventions being canceled by COVID-19, law firms are looking at new ways to communicate using video conferencing and webinars now and in the future. The bulk of CLEs will be online. Firms forced to switch from in-person meetings and events to online communications have found them to be surprisingly effective and far cheaper than taking a client to lunch or hosting an event in a hotel banquet room. But with any…
Sheltering in place requires cybersecurity for your phone, laptop, tablet, WiFi and all other Internet connected devices (IoT devices). Gaps in your home information set-up can expose you to a cyberattack and infect all your devices. Your system contains client financial records, credit card information, client health records, access to your firm’s bank account, propriety client information and the ability to send and receive wire transfers. If you’re new to setting up cybersecurity for home…
A business client contacts your law firm and says their information system was hacked or breached, and they need to pursue legal action. The first step is proving that a crime occurred and how it occurred. Think CSI: Cybersecurity. CRIME SCENES There are different entry points for a cybercriminal and different things that happen. Hackers have a variety of motives, and they’re looking for low-hanging fruit. The entry point is where the crime scene begins.…
Some law firms in the Triangle were among the 2,500 firms nationwide that use TrialWorks Case Management Software and received the below message by email Oct. 13 alerting them to the case management software hack. [FinalTilesGallery id=’62’] TrialWorks is a South Florida software company that manages electronic records for law firms of all sizes. The ransomware attack restricted access for over 5 percent of their customers. “Reams of digital legal documents have been held hostage,”…
Wiring funds or sensitive, valuable information demands cybersecurity at both ends of the wire transfer. Cyber criminals have gotten very astute at intercepting wire transfers of data and money. But no matter how cybersecure your law firm is, if the other side of the transfer is not secure your firm is exposed, if not financially, quite possibly in the eyes of your clients. There is also the downtime for your computer system that follows a…
In my last column, I created a mythical residential real estate law firm called, RealFirm,LLC. It has five employees who sometimes work remotely and leverages Microsoft Office 365 for email and office collaboration. RealFirm wants to Achieve Compliance with its cybersecurity system that meets minimum acceptable implementation of cybersafety policies, protocols, and controls. We did a Discovery Review and Initial Report for RealFirm that cost $ $5,000-10,000. Now, let’s go over what we found in…