314.808.6865

“The Russians Are Coming”

“The Russians Are Coming” is the title of a 1966 comedy starring Jonathan Winters, Brian Keith, Carl Reiner and Alan Arkin. It is the story of the chaos following the grounding of a Soviet submarine off a small New England island during the height of the Cold War.

The recent news regarding the alleged hacking of American businesses and politicians should raise a “Red Flag” for all businesses. These events highlight the vulnerability all businesses face to Cyber and Privacy Breach risks.

A Cyber policy offers peace of mind. Yes, a quality Cyber policy, like SafeLaw, protects your firm from hackers. But the risk to your firm is far greater than “bad guys”.

If you retain sensitive information like names, social security numbers, birth dates, health records and bank account information, State law holds your law firm responsible if this information ends up in the hands of an unauthorized person.

The SafeLaw Cyber policy is designed specifically for law firms. It is designed to protect your firm from the following risks:

  1. Conduit Injury – a lawsuit resulting from a network security failure that caused additional damage to a client’s computer network.

2. Reputational Injury – a lawsuit resulting from an attorney’s participation in social media.

3. Disclosure Injury – a lawsuit resulting from the unauthorized access to or dissemination of client information. You may ask, “How could this happen at my firm”? There are a number of ways. For instance, an employee could accidently email confidential information to the wrong people, or an iPhone or personal computer could be lost and end up in the hands of an unauthorized person.

4. Content Injury – a lawsuit alleging intellectual property or copyright infringement perhaps due to postings on the firm’s website or blog.

5. Privacy Notification Expenses – the costs associated with complying with relevant breach notification laws and with the better cyber policies, like SafeLaw, this includes the cost of attorney fees and/or credit-monitoring services. It is the law. As a business you are obligated to protect the information of your clients, and staff. If there is a breach you are required to notify the impacted party.

6. Forensic and Crisis Management Expenses – the costs associated with bringing in outside experts to investigate the incident and fix the problem, with SafeLaw, this coverage even includes the cost of a public relations consultant to help you manage the impact on your reputation.

7. Extortion Expenses – the costs associated with investigations or paying for the return of or gaining back access to data.

8. Ransom Ware Payments – “Ransom Ware” is malicious software designed by the “bad guys” to block access to your computer system until you make a payment to the “bad guys”. This type of coverage is available with a special endorsement with the SafeLaw policy. This risk may also be covered under a separate Crime policy.