Category Archives: Security

Security focused analysis

Tech Snippets Today at NEARCON – Immunefi – Mitchell Amador, CEO with Joseph Raczynski

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One of the most important areas in the blockchain space is around testing smart contracts. Since everything is reliant on code, the key is to identify potential holes in contracts, which could lead to massive breaches or losses of money. Immunefi is a place where hackers and companies meet to help find bugs in code and reward the white hat hackers for saving a smart contract from getting exploited. In this discussion, we talk how this works, where it’s going, and even touch on the latest issues around Tornado Cash, regulation, and which parts of the world are leading.

Cybersecurity at the centre – competing globally with different rules

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Originally published on Legal Insights Europe.

By Joseph Raczynski

The topic of global cybersecurity will challenge each one of us. It is an unstable concoction of cultural norms and legal property rights patiently awaiting attention before it bursts. The overarching question is ‘how can legal organizations and overall society manage rising threats to the integrity of intellectual property (IP) whilst retaining and using information’? Add in the complexity that the global landscape is comprised of open societies, with freedoms and individuality, and close societies, of collectivism and oppression. The fundamentals of open society and IP rights—contrasted with closed societies and their misuse of IP through cyber threats will soon force change.

The Situation

The Council on Foreign Relations has been focusing recent seminars on emerging technology and cybersecurity as it relates to China and Russia. The thematic quintessence from the highest former administrators in the U.S. Intelligence Community is that the UK, Europe, and U.S. are under constant IP attack. They cited countless examples of nation states sending students and other professionals to the UK and U.S. with the sole intention of pilfering IP. Purportedly in one example, students at some of the best scientific universities are forced into this criminal role by their government. Their family, at home, is threatened if information from the student is not collected and given to the state. The majority of students have honest intentions in their travels—advancement of their own education and to enjoy the cultural exchange, but increasingly the U.S. Intelligence Community is alarmed at what they are finding. Commercial cyber espionage.

The cultural philosophies are starkly different, from one state to the next. The society of one state is open and the other closed. For example, pushing for individual’s governance of their own personal information manifested through General Data Protection Regulation—as with the European Union, while the other state created a ‘social credit’ score by ranking citizens based on their behaviour from data gathered by millions of facial recognition eyes in the sky. Both governments strive for rapid development in artificial intelligence, quantum computing, blockchain, and biotechnology. Governments develop these specialty areas in different ways. Eric Schmidt, former Google CEO, once said, “there will be two internets, one for China and one for the rest of the world”. The washing of information about the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests from every Chinese online forum and publication is cited as an example of the ‘other internet’. As a result, most teenagers in China have never heard of the protests which turned into a massacre.

Law firms as a collective serve as the largest holder of IP. As such, they are a top target for cyber espionage. The overarching laws are clear in the UK, and most often people abide by them. When there is conflict, legal process takes place and ultimately decisions are made, resulting in a final adjudication. What if no one paid attention to the decision? What if people did whatever they wanted, even though the IP for Flake candy bar is registered, China could copy it and sell it where ever they wished? This is the situation with the closed societies, and typically cybersecurity breeches are the means to an end for nation states looking to bolster their own companies.

The Dilemma

According to the U.S. Intelligence Community, the challenge is that closed societies are breaking into law firms and corporations, stealing IP and using it to build their own companies. The speed of these new companies built on the backs of stolen IP is phenomenal and will be much more difficult for those UK organizations to compete against.

Certainly, corporate espionage has been around since before cobblers competed in shoe-making. The difference is that open societies, by their nature, are now threatened by IP exploitation in the UK and US. Going forward and beyond sanctions, as the super powers of the world grow in strength and play by a different set of rules, law firms and corporations will likely need to map new ways how they protect their information and IP. The UK, U.S., and Europe will need to figure out how a society that plays by a clear set of rules competes against a society that can hack any law firm and use that information to illegally profit.

Leveraging blockchain to decrease data breaches, increase security

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Originally published in Thomson Reuters AnswersOn

By Joseph Raczynski

In the not-too-distant future, blockchain will get personal – very personal. That’s a good thing when it comes to integrity of your digital identity.

The Internet is a complex space for identity management.  Every site has a login and password, and those sites which have federated their login credentials have become massive targets for hackers.  In addition, the largest institutions charged with holding onto private information have become single points of failure; e.g. Equifax and the federal government’s Office of Personnel Management (OPM).  As the security breaches have grown in size, so too has the importance of finding a new solution to protecting of data in our always-connected world.

The solution will soon be in our hands

In the not-too-distant future, you will have a digital wallet containing hundreds or thousands of Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs).  DIDs are described as a new type of globally resolvable, cryptographically verifiable identifier registered on a distributed ledger.  These will be unique, encrypted, addresses that each of us holds in a mobile app to verify something about us; e.g. our age, height or even personal preferences.  They will be granted by a trusted source, but we will hold on to these privately and have complete control over them.  As the Sovrin Foundation explains, “The next evolution of the Internet will be the creation of a common identity layer that allows people, organizations and things to have their own self-sovereign identity—a digital identity they own and control, and which cannot be taken away from them.” This monumental shift enabled through the use of blockchain will change the paradigm of ownership of identity from the traditional large organization like Equifax into private hands.

Submitted photo courtesy of Department of Homeland Security

How will DIDs work?

I would expect that in the next five to 10 years, everyone in the United States will be issued a new national identification number to replace our current social security number.  As you can see in the above graphic, an agency such as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will issue this new number.  It will assure the person making the claim is who he or she says he or she is, and issue a DID with a private key (for their eyes only) and public key (for anyone to verify the ID) which the person holds in his or her digital wallet.  The DHS will also register proof of claim integrity on the permissioned blockchain (a vetted private blockchain).  Going forward when requested, the person can present his or her digital identification (public key) to the verifier (Border Patrol, an employer, IRS) who can then validate this claim’s integrity through the secured blockchain registry.  Most of these exchanges of information will use a QR code so the DID can be scanned with ease.  This new verification system will create significant efficiencies and will be much more secure.

Eventually, this will be expanded beyond government issued identifiers, though at MIT Sovrin, it was mentioned the IRS is looking at this solution now.  You will soon have DIDs for access to anything you normally use for login and passwords on websites, access to your house and starting your car.  Anything that requires a key or login now will leverage this new technology.  Self-sovereign identity flips the old model of control from central authorities, or single points of failure to individuals.

ILTACON 2016 SESSION: NEW INTERNATIONAL STANDARD FOR CLOUD DUE DILIGENCE

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By Joseph Raczynski

The cloud is becoming increasingly ubiquitous at law firms. In fact, a recent ABA Technology Survey stated that 46 percent of cloudless firms will be transitioning in the next 6-12 months. In the session on the “New International Standard for Cloud Due Diligence,” Gregg Brown, senior director Technical Strategy, Computer Standards at Microsoft, and Patrick Oot, partner at Shook, Hardy & Bacon, discussed the changes to the cloud over the last six years and what is coming down the road.

Small- and medium-sized firms have embraced the cloud, while the largest firms have been more reluctant, saddled with restraints placed by their clients – especially in the financial industry. That said, there now seems to be some loosening of the straps in that particular space.

Benefits of the cloud:

The duo argued multiple reasons for jumping to the cloud. First, firms can take advantage of the latest innovations, features and capabilities with updates released every month, compared to waiting years for internal upgrades to their current systems. In addition, the cloud offers greater agility – not having to retrain or rebuild as needs expand.

Oftentimes, clients require more capacity on short notice, which the cloud can easily accommodate. At a base level, the cloud is a fraction of the cost of on-premises solutions – though add-ons can sometime raise the price close to that of an in-house solution.

As more firms adopt BYOD (bring your own device), the cloud enables firms to meet workforce demands with a per-user license. But with BYOD comes another layer of security concern, which the cloud can more readily accommodate as most vendors will be up-to-date with regard to security patches.

As Brown also noted, another inherent benefit to cloud technology is access to analytics. With all of its data in the cloud, a firm can easily deploy search and analytics across all of its information/eDiscovery, compared to what one might have with an on-premises solution.

Risks in the cloud:

As firms move to the cloud, one of the most persistent risks associated with the technology is multitenancy, means that a software application may not work well as designed in the cloud with multiple users trying to gain simultaneous access to it.  And of course, with complexity tied to data transfer laws, particularly between the US and EU, firms should consider the challenges of data access and the courts, Oot noted.

New ISO Standard Impacting the cloud in 2016:

Brown also described that by the end of 2016, there will be a new “Cloud Service Level Agreement (SLA) Framework” – known as ISO/IEC 19086-1 – published, which will offer a set of considerations for cloud agreements. He noted this will be a boon for law firms as it will lay out a guidance standard verses the normal compliance standard. This should have a positive impact, although Brown cautioned that these guidance standards will raise key questions and require analysis and evaluation.

Reflecting on the session, Oot and Brown surmised that technology still has a few pessimists, but that the forecast is looking positive as more and more firms opt-in. With its waxing advantages and waning risks, it appears that greater cloud adoption is near.

As they concluded, Oot and Brown pointed out one last benefit of the cloud – terms of service from providers can now be negotiated, where previously this was not permitted.

Based on what they outlined, there is little question that fewer barriers remain to adopting the cloud.

Joseph Raczynski is manager, Technical Client Management, Thomson Reuters 

Law Firm and Corporate Cybersecruity Presentation – UMB

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By Joseph Raczynski

Recorded at the University of Maryland, Baltimore during the “Cybersecruity and You” morning session. Discussed is the current landscape of cybersecurity at law firms and corporations, the primary issues these organizations are finding and general awareness of what is happening.

LegalSEC: Email Security is Priority One for Law Firms

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By Joseph Raczynski

BALTIMORE, Md. — “Three strikes and you are out of the firm.” This is the mantra of one law firm when dealing with employees who click on spear-phishing emails, according to Mounil Patel, Strategic Technology Consultant at Mimecast, an email and cloud security firm.

Patel’s comments came at the recent gathering of legal tech and cybersecurity officials, the LegalSEC Summit, presented last week by the International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) in Baltimore.

Simply stated, email is currently the largest hole in law firm and corporate security. Most other aspects of the firm have been shored up over the last several years, including firewall and antivirus protection, malware defenses, and monitoring of networks. However, as Patel pointed out, a law firm can have every monitoring and protection application in place, but email’s reliance on the human decision factor creates major headaches for the firm’s IT staff.

emailTo illustrate, Patel described one incident where he received an email from someone with whom he had worked years ago at a previous company. The email was directed to him and clearly appeared to be from his old colleague’s email address. The cordial note brought up some of their old connections at the previous company and then asked if he would kindly review the attached resume to see if there might be a fit for him at his new company. Patel naturally opened the PDF and the virus payload was released. The point is, with today’s more sophisticated email attacks, there is almost no way for people to know what are genuine correspondences from friends or colleagues and what is a “virus bomb”.

Patel’s advice:

  • Be suspicious of everything that comes into your inbox especially from the outside;
  • .EXEs and .ZIPs files should always be blocked or deleted;
  • PDFs can be difficult — be sure to run the latest patches from Adobe (creator of PDFs);
  • Be aware of where links and URLs are taking you;
  • Law firm or company IT departments should send weekly notes to remind people to be cautious; and
  • For finance, use internal non-email based systems for wire transfers and notifications.

 

It is interesting to note that many law firms and corporations are internally testing their own employees with such targeted spear-phishing attacks similar to the one Patel received. A client of Patel’s ran one such email security campaign and when an attorney was caught opening the attached files or following the links, that person immediately received a pre-recorded message via voicemail from the entire executive partnership that such behavior was unacceptable.

The message went on to state if they were caught twice more they would be terminated — three strikes and they were out.

One best practice noted by one chief information officer at the Summit was that before you start your phishing campaign, let the firm know you are conducting this. She found that attorneys began sending IT suspicious emails proactively. In addition, reaffirm those who do not click the phishing emails, by not noting that they are doing good work.

Email will continue to dog corporations and law firms for the foreseeable future. Ultimately it comes down to humans making decision on what to open and click on. At this point in time, a well-crafted targeted email attack appeals to most people, unfortunately. (In fact, the likelihood of an executive clicking on one of these attacks is at a stunning 96%, according to McAfee.)

So, heeding some of Patel’s advice could save your organization the pains of another attack launched via email.

LegalSEC: Shedding Light on the Dark Net 

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By Joseph Raczynski

The importance of law firms understanding the dark web

Your very sensitive private client data could be available for all to see on the Internet right now.  Technically this data would be on the Dark Net or Dark Web.  It is the portion of the World Wide Web that is hidden or inaccessible from normal browsers.  As corporations and law firms grapple with larger and more profound attacks, I think it is important to be aware of how individuals access it and what occurs there to better safeguard your firm from what is happening now.  At the cybersecurity LegalSEC Summit last week in Baltimore, Kevin Lancaster CEO of Winvale, Todd Nielson, President at ‎Secuvant Cyber Security, and Will Nuland, Sr. Security Researcher at Dell SecureWorks, spoke about the nuances around the Dark Net.

The Dark Web, born from a United States government program had positive intent from the onset.  It created a cyberspace where people in disaffected regions could anonymously visit and share ideas freely.  North Koreans and Iranians use this to congregate and postulate new ways to live.  They could then visit this space in the ether and share ideas freely without the fear that they would be persecuted for espousing ideas incongruous with their government point of view.

How to get there:

The following is not advised, but is here as an awareness of how people access the Dark Web.

Mozilla Firefox has a plugin (Tor Project), a simple free application run by a nonprofit organization which turns your normal browser into a Tor Onion enabled browser.  What that means is that the plugin creates a tunneled Internet to a minimum of 100 other locations around the world.  You are essentially establishing a proxy connection to other computers who are running the same Tor software.  This establishes a very strong sense of anonymity and security that no one knows who you are or where you live (IP address).   If I live in Washington, DC after running the plugin I may show up as living in Prague, but first being routed through 99 other cities.

darkweb

Once the application is launched you would need to find an index page, like the Hidden Wiki, which gives users a general launching off point for perusing the Dark Web websites.  It is not a pure search and find environment like Google, though some sites are indexed.  Sites are not set up with URL structure like we have on the Open Web, http://www.thomsonreuters.com.  In fact they appear to be hashed with letters and numbers in a random pattern.  They also end in an .onion compared to the normal .com that we tend to see.  So an example address might be: ijfije856ya5lo.onion.

Once there:

Unfortunately, once a user passes into this realm, there is a minefield awaiting.  The Wiki page starts with the benign and dives headlong into the frightening and disturbing.  You can buy $10,000 of fake US dollars for the equivalent of $5,000 in Bitcoin, the currency of choice.  The cryptocurrency Bitcoin is also generally considered anonymous.   Other possibilities include, hiring a hacker, buying prescription drugs, and buying illegal drugs, and acquiring arms or if you so desired, get involved in unregulated medical trials.  On the darker side, you can even hire a hit man.

Law Firm Perspective on Dark Web:

The key important piece to this post is that law firms are now being brought into the dark side.  Criminals are stealing IP information, M&A information and dropping off onto the Dark Web.  Other groups are grabbing proprietary information or sensitive client information from law firm networks and saving it onto the Dark Net to either expose the firm, or to hold at ransom.  Hackers for hire have been used to target corporations and law firms.

One of the subjects that was asked of the panel, how should firms handle the Dark Web?   In my time consulting around this subject, I was curious about the response.  The group was split.  Some thought that companies should not use their own networks to access the environment, others stated that in a controlled access situation, they could monitor what is going on the Dark Web to protect their brand.  In fact, it was stated that nearly two million people a day visit, but most are monitoring what is happening.  Law firms and corporations should be looking for client names, login and passwords, email address of their respective company.

With the increase in cyber-attacks, all entities have to be aware of how the hackers operate.  Understanding the Dark Web in the context of this is part of the due diligence for any corporation or law firm today.  Fortunately a new wave of companies are surfacing which can monitor the Dark Net on behalf of your organization.

LegalSEC: Cybersecurity, Rooted in 500 Years of History

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By Joseph Raczynski

Learning from colonial piracy about the war on cybersecurity 

“It is a small world.  It’s a fragile world.  No one is safe until everyone is safe.”  These are the cautionary words of Rod Beckstrom of The Rod Beckstrom Group, the keynote speaker at the cybersecurity LegalSEC Summit last week in Baltimore.  With over 350 legal technology professionals leaning into his every word, he set the stage for where cybersecurity is headed with an advisory tale from history now repeating itself on the Internet.  His intent, to arm the guardians overseeing 80-90% of the country’s IP information all sitting in the same room at that moment in time.

History of Pirates

In 1491, the “Erdapfel” of Martin Beheim was created.  It is the oldest surviving terrestrial globe – excluding the Americas.  This sphere was cutting edge technology of the day.  Like any technology its uses can be for the betterment of humanity or its decline.  Not surprisingly, around the release of the globe, piracy began to flourish.  Seafaring scoundrels viewed the world anew with this technology and seized upon its bounty.

These salty scofflaws took four unique forms in their day.  One group of pirates were sponsored by the Dutch, Spanish, and British empires respectively.  Another group realized they could band together using their private ships to attack on the high seas for gems and precious metals.  The third formed a coalition around pirating for a cause.  The last group were one-off ships that would attack others for jewels or money.  These four pirating entities have a present day adaptation.  They translate to State Actors (e.g. China, Iran, North Korea), Organized Crime (e.g. in Russia or Estonia), Hacktivist (e.g. Anonymous) and Lone Hackers (e.g. anyone and everyone).  One new addition, in the Cyber Age there is also the internal threat to organizations known as “Insider Joe” attacks which are very prevalent.

keynote

Present and Future

As Beckstrom described in this presentation, the wars over the years require time for forces to align.  During the Nuclear era, once the major powers acquired these arms, everyone realized it was in the best interest of each country not to use them, i.e. mutually assured destruction.  This is ongoing right now with Cyberwar.  He said that China or Russia could hobble the infrastructure of the United States tomorrow, but they realize that if they did that, the US would do the same to them, therefore no one conducts this sort of cyber-attack.

Law firms are not a sovereign territory so all aforementioned groups are threats and in turn are seeking them out.  These groups have tools which are sold on the Dark Web as out of the box solutions and can wreak havoc for firms in very little time.  In the graphic below Beckstrom outlines an ecosystem where various parties work together but in isolation to earn money or take down a company.  The scripts are created by people and sold to criminals.  While another sets of criminals have harvested millions of credentials.  In conjunction the Criminal Operator uses both to target a law firm or corporation.  Those proceeds or goods are then routed through Mules.  These are everyday people who simply accept packages and send them along to someone else which keeps the money flowing. In most of the law firm attacks, mules are not used, instead data is either released or held at random by the Criminal Operator.

rod1

The only way to combat this said Beckstrom will be a new world of robots fighting robots (computer bots), which is now occurring.  This next era defense is sifting through huge amounts of data and applying cognitive computing and artificial intelligence with a layer of deep learning on top.  In this light he underscored the importance of preparedness.  One of the world’s largest banks, JPMorgan, has decided to pledge a half billion dollars toward the fight on cybersecurity.

Beckstrom closed with the warning to each firm CIO that the time is now to invest heavily in cybersecurity.  Every one of the attacker profiles mentioned are attempting to break in and get access to law firm and corporate information.  Prepare now because time is short – we are not safe until everyone is safe – by taking the responsibility to invest.

The Paralegal’s Role in the New World of Cybersecurity

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Published: The Legal Intelligencer

Written: Victor Panieczko

Contributor: Joseph Raczynski

Cyberattacks have affected virtually every industry. These include, but are not limited to, health care, education, finance, energy, retail, hospitality and government. Most of us have seen or heard about the security breaches of Home Depot Inc., eBay Inc., Target Corp., Sony Pictures Entertainment, JPMorgan Chase, and the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. What is cybersecurity? The National Initiative for Cybersecurity Career and Studies (NICCS) defines cybersecurity as “the activity or process, ability or capability, or state whereby information and communications systems and the information contained therein are protected from and/or defended against damage, unauthorized use or modification, or exploitation.” Oxforddictionaries.com states that cybersecurity is “the state of being protected against the criminal or unauthorized use of electronic data, or the measures taken to achieve this.” Finally, Webopedia.com characterizes cybersecurity as “the technologies and processes designed to protect computers, networks and data from unauthorized access, vulnerabilities and attacks.”

Cybersecurity is by all accounts a growing challenge. Today, hackers are more advanced and better equipped. Their success mostly depends on finding a hole, or vulnerability, that goes unpatched or unnoticed by defenders. The more difficult a system is to infiltrate, the more time, energy and skill hackers must invest into cracking that system. More attacks are coming from highly skilled and sophisticated hacker groups, with their motivations varying from monetary gain to disruption and injury to their targets for any number of non-monetary reasons.

Virtually every cybersecurity expert and commentator agrees that the threats to cybersecurity are evolving and growing more worrisome. Risks associated with cybersecurity have escalated for many law firms, managing partners and corporate boards of directors. They are working and prioritizing cybersecurity to establish security awareness throughout the organizations and demonstrating cybersecurity as an enterprise priority. Lawyers and law firms handle highly sensitive and confidential client data and play a critical role in assisting general counsel on how to handle a cyberbreach when information is compromised. Edward J. McAndrew, assistant U.S. attorney and cybercrime coordinator, explains what have been the most significant developments in the area of law firm cybersecurity:

“Because of the information entrusted to them, the sensitive matters they handle, and the prominent positions in society they often occupy, lawyers are primary targets for all types of cyberattacks. … Cybersecurity has become both an ethical obligation and business imperative for law firms of all sizes. The Model Rules of Professional Conduct and the ethical rules of a growing number of state bars expressly encompass obligations to secure, and to maintain the confidentiality of, client data. Clients are under increasing pressure to secure their own and their customers’ data. They are applying that pressure on law firms.”

Many law firms have offices around the globe, and their clients’ operations are constantly expanding. Clients conducting business in industries such as health care, banking and financial services, retail and telecommunications are at a high risk for cybersecurity breaches. Clients are raising their cybersecurity concerns with their lawyers and looking for advice from law firms on how to protect against a breach and design a security plan in case a breach does occur. When asked if paralegals will be involved in their law firms’ processes of creating and developing cyberrisk management protocols, Joseph Raczynski, technology manager from Thomson Reuters, explained that “it makes natural sense that paralegals who have an interest in process and cybersecurity take a significant role in managing these protocols. Paralegals touch so many aspects of the firm. They use various applications, websites, manage large volumes of data and email. All of these facets can be an entryway for viruses, malware and hackers. Paralegals who have a natural inclination toward process and an interest in cybersecurity would be a great fit in this realm to help fill the void at the firm.”

On a large scale, law firms handle and store a large volume of their clients’ confidential information in their networks. Law firms are vulnerable targets for hackers because they represent clients in high-risk industries. The more high-volume and sophisticated clients they have, the better information they possess, and the more value it holds for hackers. Lawyers are holders of clients’ personal and legal information and have an ethical duty to protect client data. The American Bar Association Model Rules of Professional Conduct, in Rule 1.6(c), state, “A lawyer shall make reasonable efforts to prevent the inadvertent or unauthorized disclosure of, or unauthorized access to, information relating to the representation of a client.” Corporate and individual clients entrust their lawyer and the law firms with their sensitive and confidential data. A client’s data might relate to intellectual property, employment or labor disputes, real estate, political matters, victim statements, and witness and expert identities and testimonies. Benjamin M. Lawsky, New York State Department of Financial Services superintendent, stated in a letter to CEOs, GCs and CIOs:

“Recent cybersecurity breaches should serve as a stern wake-up call for insurers and other financial institutions to strengthen their cyberdefenses. Those companies are entrusted with a virtual treasure trove of sensitive customer information that is an inviting target for hackers. Regulators and private-sector companies must both redouble their efforts and move aggressively to help safeguard this consumer data.”

Further, DFS “encourages all institutions to view cybersecurity as an integral aspect of their overall risk management strategy, rather than solely as a subset of information technology.”

Because law firms these days have highly mobile workforces, they should be aware of the emergence of cyberrisks in their respective firms. If the firms do not have proper protection in place to stop hackers from obtaining critical and confidential information related to client matters, the breaches will result in substantial loss of time, resources, productivity, revenue, and perhaps most importantly, credibility. To help law firms and businesses deal with cyberattacks and breaches, U.S. Congress has passed legislation regarding cybersecurity enforcement, the Cybersecurity Enhancement Act of 2014 (S 1353). Additional pending federal legislation includes the Protecting Cyber Networks Act (HR 1560); the National Cybersecurity Protection Advancement Act of 2015 (HR 1731) and the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015 (S 754).

Legal technology is constantly undergoing development and change. We went from microfilm and microfiche to CD-ROM, to Lexis and Westlaw, to email and the Internet, to technology-assisted review (TAR) and electronically stored information (ESI), to social medial and now to cybersecurity. These technological advances transformed the law firm workplace. Many litigation paralegals obtained skills in TAR and ESI. Should paralegals learn new skills related to cybersecurity? Raczynski explains what effect he foresees cybersecurity and other technological developments will have on paralegals:

“Paralegals are squarely in the mix with regard to cybersecurity activity for both the protection of client data, but also as targets for hackers. They carry a significant responsibility in assuring that the firm is not compromised. Through their everyday projects paralegals are on the frontlines of major security threats. They must be vigilant in awareness about the software they download and use, sites visited, and links clicked. As law firms become larger targets for hackers because of IP and proprietary information for mergers and acquisitions, there are a host of ways that they are being targeted.”

Further, McAndrew answers if he thinks paralegals will spend more time assisting and/or working on cybersecurity projects:

“Yes—in at least two respects. First, the need for cybersecurity-related legal services has exploded seemingly overnight. Many firms are building practices focused on the legal issues created by cybersecurity needs across industry sectors. Working on these issues requires a very high level of legal and technological expertise. More paralegals are likely to begin specializing in cyberlaw, just as more lawyers and firms are beginning to do so. Second, cybersecurity is becoming an important business issue for the law firms themselves. Inadequate cybersecurity is becoming a business disqualifier; good cybersecurity is a business differentiator. Those firms and professionals who can distinguish themselves as knowledgeable and appropriately focused on these issues add additional value to the service they can offer clients. As integral parts of the legal services team, paralegals are likely to spend additional time learning about and working on cybersecurity-related, business development projects.”