The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) have issued the latest advice to legal practitioners.  A full copy of the report can be found here:

https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/legalthreat

The purpose of this report is to help law firms understand current cyber security threats and the extent to which the legal sector is being targeted. It also offers practical guidance on how they can protect their practice. The cyber threat applies to law firms of all sizes and practice, from sole practitioners, high street and mid-size firms, in-house legal departments up to international corporate firms.

The legal sector threat report outlines that “humans will always do what humans do” and so legal practices need to use technology to combat cyber-crime as well as solid and regular training.  At the launch event we were advised that there is a 95% click through rate on phishing emails, according to an NCSC test on whether people are taking any notice and reacting appropriately to such emails.

Additionally the emails are now so sophisticated that employees would be hard pushed to recognise a genuine contract pack email form a phishing one.  Members are advised to install and maintain their anti-malware software to combat these emails.  The purpose of the attacks can be multifarious but generally will be to steal data, install ransomware or to use your processing power.  Are your computers running slow?  Maybe that’s why!