Law firms can benefit from following a few tips to ensure secure file sharing. To guarantee data safety, it is recommended that firms utilize measures such as encrypting files, creating user restrictions, and making use of a reliable file-sharing service. With these steps, firms can protect their confidential information and ensure that sensitive data is only shared with the appropriate parties.
In this day and age, it is essential to be able to easily transfer digital data. Physical documents in folders are becoming a thing of the past, as law firms now require the capability of sending out PDFs or Word documents quickly, be it through text message or email, to remain productive.
Maintaining the security of documents shared and stored on the cloud is critical for law practice to avoid the catastrophic costs associated with a data breach or the misuse of sensitive information.
Having reliable security measures for a network and its devices is essential, but law firms should also give thought to the security of their data exchange services and operations.
It was revealed during the initial few months of 2020 that all law firms surveyed were subjected to cyberattacks and almost half of them had evidence of peculiar cyber behavior.
file-sharing
Although it’s impossible for legal firms to completely revert to the days of paper documents and physical filing cabinets, they can embrace best practices to securely share files and guarantee they are meeting their responsibility to make every effort to avoid any data leakage, loss, or breach.
Step-by-Step Guide for Ensuring the Safety of Legal Documents when Sharing Them
Verify That You’re Utilizing a Safe System
It is essential to make sure that the file-sharing platform you are using is secure, particularly when it is not from a large Software as a Service supplier such as Microsoft Dropbox, Google, etc.
Ensuring that the platform you’re utilizing is compliant with any data protection regulations, such as GDPR, is essential if you need to adhere to them.
Establishing guidelines for safeguarding documents is a must. Such rules can help to prevent any unauthorized access to important information.
Files that are saved in the cloud are not fixed in one spot. They can be transferred from one application to another, and they can be conveniently sent from a personal computer to a mobile device.
No matter which device a law firm’s digital documents are on, it is essential to guarantee their security. To do this, data policies must be implemented that protect the files and stay with them, no matter where they are being viewed from. This ensures that security measures are in place at all times.
When implementing document security, the following security policies ought to be taken into consideration:
Refrain from replicating
Solely absorb the text
Try to avoid printing
Inability to be disseminated via social media
Watermarks (classified, etc.)
Document coding
Limit access from non-regulated devices
Applying the Principle of Minimal Authority
An ever-increasing amount of data available on the internet is making data leakage a greater issue. Where data breaches are deliberately done to take or damage data, in most cases data leakage is the result of an unintentional occurrence, for instance when an employee mistakenly sends a delicate document to the wrong person via email.
Inadequately secured cloud applications and APIs can cause a device, like a mobile phone, to “overshare” data, resulting in data leakage.
A way to reduce the odds of compromising confidential data is to restrict who can access sensitive documents. Don’t permit everyone to see them all; instead, only provide the least needed to carry out their duties. This also helps to prevent issues with vital information mistakenly being eliminated or rewritten.
Enhance the Security of Accounts by Enabling Multi-Factor Authentication
To keep your files safe from malicious hackers, it is essential to ensure your cloud storage and sharing accounts are properly secured. A password manager with strong passwords is a great start, but you should also take advantage of multi-factor authentication (MFA).
A passcode sent to an approved device, together with the user’s credentials, must be entered at login when using MFA. It has been noted that this can help block 99.9% of fraudulent account attacks.
Adopt Regulations for Managing File Storage to Create an Organized Environment
If your online file storage becomes crowded, it can become difficult for your law firm personnel to uncover the files they require. Moreover, this can increase the chances of incorrectly sending a link for the wrong file or folder.
Creating a policy to manage the lifecycle of digital files is comparable to archiving outdated documents.
Establish a system for assessing documents once they reach a designated age (e.g., two years). Determine if they should be removed, such as an outdated sales brochure, or if they must be retained for legal or regulatory purposes.
If they are not needed for frequent use but need to be kept, it is best to store them in a secure archiving system, so that they are not taking up space in the main cloud storage area.
Get Expert Aid from CMIT Solutions Austin Central to Put Shielding in Place for Your Records!
For Austin law offices, CMIT Solutions offers a secure file-sharing system that employs advanced security measures to protect the integrity of the documents.
Call us now! Dial (512) 642-5457 or contact us through our website
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