Pipelines, Ransomware, and Process Servers

Running a client first company, I’m always on the lookout to see how other companies measure up and if they are Client First. So, what could a Pipeline, Ransomware and Process Serving possibly have in common, well let me tell you…

Back in the late 90’s I was a member of a team of professionals that provided information security technology and solutions to the government, predominantly the Department of Defense. One accomplishment that I am most proud of is that my team engineered and deployed the first worldwide VPN network using the commercial Internet for the U.S. Air National Guard. Today VPN’s or Virtual Private Networks are very common, so are Internet speeds of 200Mbps or more. But in the late 90’s VPN’s were new and common internet speeds were in the Kbps vs Mbps – anyone remember dial-up? Anyway, my point is that technology has come a long way in the last 20 years. One thing that has not improved over the years is the safety of the Internet. In fact as technology has marched forward the Blackhat community has utilized the additional bandwidth and better technology to ramp up their efforts to cause a little mayhem. Recently, all of us that live in the Southeast have been reminded that the threat of information security breaches and ransomware is well and alive on the Internet.

10 to 15 years ago, there were plenty of companies for the Blackhats to pick on, if you were small or low profile, you did not really need to worry so much about Internet intrusions or ransomware because there were so many bigger companies or other easy targets. You could install a basic firewall and chances are the hackers would move on to and easier unprotected network. However, easy access to technology and bandwidth has made it simple for hackers to target large groups of domain names/IP addresses. Anyone with a little knowledge, a $200 laptop or mobile phone and an Internet connection can create some interesting information security challenges for companies.

So, as an attorney, firm operations manager, or paralegal why should you care? As a high-volume Debt Collection, Foreclosure, or Personal Injury firm how many defendants or other civil parties does your firm come in contact within a year, 5 years, 10 years. I suspect many of those interactions do not end with the defendant being happy with the interaction they had, right? Your firm is interacting with 100 of defendants a week and representing many high-profile banks, servicers, and other commercial entities. So, what would it mean to your business if you got hit with a ransomware attack? Unfortunately, I’m familiar with several firms that have experienced and an attack. I suspect many of you would attempt to remediate the intrusion by restoring the latest “uninfected” backup. But, what if the Blackhat’s are smarter this time. They let the ransomware become truly invasive, not only infecting your systems, but your backups as well. How long could you be down? Once it became known that you had a security breach, how many clients would you lose?

The good news is that the technology to prevent malicious attacks isn’t that expensive or even costly to deploy and maintain. I would suggest, what is costly and time consuming is dealing with the aftermath of an intrusion. Do you have the internal resources and knowledge to remediate? If you do, how do you know that everything is clean? If not, what did you miss?

The bad news is that that many of the vendors that you use probably don’t give YOUR information security a second thought. After all, when is the last time you have heard any Legal Service vendor or a 3rd party vendor mention YOUR information security when they start working with your firm. A typical SOP vendor might list a competitive advantage as how quickly they can serve, efile etc. your documents. They might even they are secure and give you a copy of their latest SOC-3 audit results to assume you that everything awesome and you are totally covered. But that SOC-3 Audit was from January, now almost June – are they still secure? Never mind them, you are the Client, right? What about your data? Do they have the knowledge and technology to protect your information or even just to secure their connection to you?

While I can’t speak for my competitors, I can assure you that 360 Legal addresses the whole information security picture each and every time we connect with a new client.   No matter how you connect to 360 Legal, we handle your information securely. For instance, if you are a smaller firm who uses our 360 TotalView customer portal, you can rest assured that all communication from your computer to our portal is encrypted and secure. Taking it a step further, we developed a secure desktop app, 360 Connect that not only establishes a secure connection between the 360 Network and your network, it takes steps to scans for viruses and malware to prevent any malicious content from traversing between our network and yours. For larger firms that connect directly to our Service of Process platform, 360 Integrate can establish VPN tunnels between the edge of your network and our datacenter. Normal traffic inside the VPN is encrypted so that it is not only secure, but the data transmitted between our two systems traverses private channel.

If your legal vendor isn’t speaking with you about information security, they probably aren’t thinking about it themselves. That can only leave you, your data, and your client’s reputation at risk. In today’s competitive landscape, can you really afford to work with a vendor that is not secure. At 360 legal, we are constantly thinking about keeping our clients’ data and reputation pristine. Our systems are constantly monitored for malicious activity, ransomware, and other malicious content. 360 Legal has the experience, comprehensive services, and reliability to ensure that any connection to our network is stable and secure.

If you would like to work with a client first company that not only gets the job done, but gets it done securely, give us a call. Working with 360 Legal can give you piece of mind. Let 360 Legal show you a better way. Drop me an email, give us a call at (888) 360-5345. You don’t have to settle for Client Eventually technology solutions or customer service, there are other options in the marketplace. We will show you the difference working with a Client First vendor can make for your firm.

You, your firm, your clients, and your staff deserve better! Call Us (888) 360-5345.