The biggest cyberthreats facing the legal profession in 2023.

In the past 12 months, over half (59%) of medium-sized businesses reported that they had experienced a cyber-attack, as discovered in a government survey conducted by The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. For large businesses, this number jumps to an enormous 72%.

Disruptive attacks continue to pose a threat to day-to-day business, so, what do you need to look out for to keep safe?

Two of the most prominent cyberattacks facing the legal profession in 2023 include Social Engineering and Phishing.

• Social Engineering

Having access to large amounts of data that can impact market sectors and beyond makes you a significant target for cybercriminals. The bigger the potential reward, the more effort attackers will put in.

Social engineering attacks are sophisticated and specifically designed to target your organisation. These attacks involve considerable amounts of research into the day-to-day practices of your business - who works for you, who your suppliers are, and who your customers are. This information is then used to access your data, interrupt financial transactions, whatever the endgame of the attack is.

For example, you may receive an email looking as though it were sent from a senior team member of a supplier, asking an employee to confirm card or bank details, transfer money or share sensitive information. Often the attacker will include a time pressure, which increases the likelihood that your employee will divulge the sensitive information.

The attacks look for weaknesses in the chain of procedure, which they can use as their point of entry to the company. This can be a combination of technology and traditional ‘hacking’ blended with physical deception.

• Phishing

Phishing, in its simplest terms, seeks to trick the recipient into granting access to your systems. Often through a spoofed email, the attacker sends a message with a link or attachment that when clicked, allows them to access the recipient’s systems. Amongst other examples, this may present as a link that looks like a standard login page, or it may be an infected attachment.

Phishing emails are a route that attackers can utilise to take over your systems and lock you out of them. Simply clicking a link that you think is legitimate is enough to lock you out in an instant.

With an increased demand for working from home, we’re reliant on instant messaging, emails and texts which opens up the possibility of falling foul of these attacks.

So how can you protect your firm?

The single biggest way to protect your business from attacks such as these is training. Phishing, ransomware, and social-engineering hacks are all reliant on human error.

Training your teams on how to spot spoofed emails, when to have a level of caution with clicking links or logging in, and how to check that an emailed request is legitimate, are relatively simple routes to being significantly more secure.

Working with a trusted provider to deliver training, set up processes, and run mock exercises as part of security procedures is an essential part of this process. Our team here at Secarma has decades of experience helping to secure businesses across all industries and professions. Evolving their skills with the ever-changing threat landscape, the Secarma team is the ideal partner to protect your firm from increasingly disruptive cyberattacks.

How can Secarma help?

Secarma’s expert training team regularly run hands-on security awareness courses across the UK and remotely. Our training sessions feature an in-depth look at the security threats that modern businesses face, including an overview of hackers’ motivations and methods. By learning to identify potential attacks, your workforce can become your organisation’s strongest line of defence.

Our security awareness training course is for non-technical staff and is designed to give them up-to-date knowledge on the latest (and the well-established, but effective) security threats.

While the course is aimed at your non-technical teams, the session still covers aspects of advanced security awareness. Business security is everyone’s responsibility within an organisation, so it’s important to increase cybersecurity awareness at every level. We don’t believe in oversimplifying security because we’re a team of penetration testers - we’ll show your staff how an attack is carried out, so they get a better understanding of how it works, and therefore how to avoid it. We educate your staff how and why cyber-criminals may target your organisation and arm them with the skills to protect your business.

You may have invested in the latest technology to keep your systems secure, but humans are still the weakest link in the security chain. We work with your teams to give them up-to-date knowledge on the latest and most effective threats that modern businesses are up against, and the part they play in defending against them. As penetration testers, our experts draw on their own experiences, plus real-world examples to give your staff an idea of what an attack may look like.

Our security awareness training session provides an in-depth look at the following:

Why Hackers Hack
Covering a host of different reasons why a threat actor could target your organisation – there’s more to it than just financial gain.

Potential Damage
Using real-world examples, we’ll cover the potential damage a hacker could do once they’ve worked their way in to your systems; from ransomware, to defacing your website, to a dreaded data breach.

Types of Attack
An in-depth look at the different methods used to strike an organisation, including:

• Exploiting insecure wireless networks,
• Physical access – tailgating and beyond,
• Sophisticated social engineering campaigns – targeting and tricking a user via email, text, social media, over the phone, and more,
• Exploiting weak passwords,
• Exploiting known (and unpatched) vulnerabilities.

Our sessions are completely customisable, so we can add specific sections and tailor the course to your organisation’s needs.

Fighting Back
Not only will we show your teams what to look out for, but we’ll also teach them how to stay vigilant against threats. This includes strong password policy, physical access prevention, and the importance of patching.

To gain further insight on how our Security Awareness services can help you to mitigate cyber threats please feel free to contact us here at Secarma on 0161 513 0960 or email us at enquiries@secarma.com and speak to one of our Cyber Security Experts who will be happy to support your security needs.