January 10, 2018

Robert Litt has been out front on online threats for decades (podcast)

Robert Litt has confronted cybersecurity and encryption issues for two presidential administrations. With Russian interference in the 2016 election as a backdrop, Litt, an ABA Journal Legal Rebels Trailblazer, says the U.S. has been facing online threats essentially since the internet's creation. “It’s been a decadeslong problem,” he says, “and…

January 10, 2018

5 cybersecurity steps you should already be taking

If you have not noticed yet, the ABA Journal is undertaking a yearlong cybersecurity series. Our intent is to explore this complex and tangled issue piece-by-piece to make sense of the current thinking around data protection, legal ethics and regulation. Admittedly, these articles are often a bird’s eye view of…

From the January 2018 issue

Large law firms’ secret information from big-money clients entice cyberthieves

Jason Tashea and Victor Li

If personal and confidential data are the currency in today’s electronic world, then law firms are sitting on a gold mine.

In May, a cyberattack by a ransomware “cryptoworm” known as WannaCry infected 300,000-plus computers worldwide by encrypting their contents and demanding that users pay a ransom if they ever wanted to see their data again. In response, DLA Piper posted a blog entry subtitled “9 Things You Should Know to…

From the January 2018 issue

Prepare, practice, protect: A strategy for defeating cyberthreats to lawyers

John P. Carlin, Robert S. Litt, Hayley R. Curry and R. Taj Moore

Corporate litigator Jane Doe sat down at her desk Monday morning and logged on to her computer. She opened an email appearing to be from a client that read: “Hi. Could you please take a look at this document? It’s urgent.” Doe clicked on the attachment. Two weeks later, a…

From the January 2018 issue

Cybersecurity and the Law

Jason Tashea

Our yearlong series explores cybersecurity and how lawyers can better safeguard their confidential information. See our first installments:

• Prepare, practice, protect: A strategy for defeating cyberthreats to lawyers

• Large law firms’ secret information from big-money clients entice cyberthieves