How Are You Protecting Your Client Data from Cyber Threats?

Perhaps more so than any other field, the legal world relies on large volumes of private and sensitive client information in order to function. From billing information to discovery, to depositions, your firm easily has thousands of digital files that need to be locked up tight and protected against any form of unauthorized access.

There is a wide range of effective endpoint protection solutions available to keep threats to your data out of your systems. However, without around-the-clock Network Security Monitoring (NSM) in place, you have no way of knowing if those protections are doing their job.

“We live in a world where our national security is threatened by cyber terrorists, and where private enterprise is forced to respond to cyber theft of intellectual property on a daily basis.” — Laurel Bellows, 2012-2013 President of the American Bar Association

Is NSM part of your firm’s cyber security measures?

If not, it should be.

Network security monitoring is an important part of your IT defense strategy. It operates 24/7, keeping a watchful eye on devices, traffic, and servers on your corporate network.  It notifies your IT provider when there’s a security threat, or when things go wrong.

NSM involves the gathering, analysis, and escalation of warnings to detect and respond to cyber intrusions. Defending your IT and network with today’s NSM tools requires knowledge, along with appropriate design and implementation.  This is critical to your overall security strategy.

Monitoring and understanding network traffic, and detecting cyber threats is extremely important for your law firm.

We see more and more legal organizations, especially large ones, investing in IT services that provide NSM capabilities. It shows where their network traffic is flowing, from what devices, and to what external IP addresses.

It provides information on what everyone is doing, so your IT services provider can determine what’s normal and abnormal. With the right tools, they can dig further into investigating anomalous behavior or fixing problems.

NSM ensures your wired and wireless networks are protected from security threats.

• Your law firm will be protected from exploits, so your IT is secure from cybercrime and hackers.
• You no longer need to worry about data breaches and vulnerabilities that cause compliance issues.
• It even protects your confidential information when using mobile devices.

You need Expert IT Support and Service to properly perform NSM.

People have always collected data at the network perimeter.  Before now, we only looked at data ingress and egress in the network. This is still valid, but it doesn’t provide a comprehensive view of network activity.

Today, network security monitoring utilizes telemetry, packet capture, threat intelligence and endpoint forensics. There are many more data sources now than in the past, and there will be more as computing gets more complex and diverse.

IT experts now monitor a much broader traffic across a network, including internal networks, WANs, and remote offices to keep an eye on what’s going on. With the right monitoring tools, they can equate what’s happening on the network with what’s happening on the host, and compare both to what is happening in the wild. This gives your IT provider touchpoints they need to perform a complete analysis of your network security.

Today’s Security Challenge

Network security monitoring is more difficult today than it was two years ago. This is due to an increase in malware.

To detect things quickly, you need timely data that you’ll get when your IT provider implements NSM. Due to the complexity of what they’re after, sometimes there are a lot of challenges across people, processes, and technology.

The greater an emphasis on remote network monitoring, the better.  It’s a source of truth for both the security and networking teams. If there are rogue connections, traffic, protocols, or encryption that’s occurring on the network that shouldn’t be, your IT provider will be notified immediately.

NSM and The Cloud

More and more law firms are using cloud services. This means we need eyes and ears in the cloud. Your IT provider can use existing network security monitoring technologies to view cloud connections so they can then apply their analytics and best practices.

NSM is generally associated with core networks or data centers, but today we must expand this to access networks, distribution networks, WAN connections, and local area networks.

Have we convinced you?

Your firm will be in a far superior position with your clients, the Bar, and regulators if you can show that you have an IT provider who uses NSM, complies with IT security best practices, and deploys the right security tools to detect malware and criminal behavior.  This ensures a strong security program that will shield your law practice from ethics violations due to inappropriately protected client data.

Now that we’ve clearly explained why network security monitoring is important for your law firm, it’s up to you to find the best IT provider in the area to handle this for you.

Colorado Computer Support can help. Get in touch with us to learn more about our network monitoring solutions and the positive impact the right precautions can have on the safety of your firm’s vital data. (719) 355-2440 blake@coloradosupport.com