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46 ¦ MARCH 23, 2020 PERSPECTIVES

Remote Computing:
Cyber Protection From Home

By Angela Turturro

The COVID-19 outbreak is forcing lawyers
to work at home, and the threat of being
“hacked” at home, where the regimen of a
law firm’s policies and costly IT infrastructure do
not exist, remains even greater than at the office.
The fact is that attorneys have an ethical obligation
to protect law firm and client confidences, and do-
ing so when working remotely is not so easy. The
virus outbreak has exposed chinks in the amour of
the confident legal profession where vulnerabili-
ties exist.
Lawyers cannot let their guard down when they
are using the shared family laptop while working
from home in sweats. This is just what the “bad
guys” are relying upon when they seek to “hack”
into your unsecure home system or compromise
KICKER: Perspective

your Gmail account or “phish” you with malignant education to an attorney’s biennial CLE ethics re-
links enticing you to click on them to find out the quirement.
current status of court closings or the spread of the
virus in your neighborhood.
Below is a summary of the Committee’s cyber-
Realizing lawyers’ weakness in this area, the security checklist to follow while working from
Committee on Technology and the Legal Profes- home:
sion of NYSBA last week issued a report titled (1) Have a remotely secure accessed digital
Cybersecurity Alert: Tips for Working Securely workspace. It should enable access to email, docu-
While Working Remotely focusing on providing ments and billing applications. Make sure every
practical, understandable cybersecurity advice attorney and staff member knows how to use it to
designed to provide attorneys with a checklist access needed information.
of tips to help them work securely when work-
ing remotely. In fact, on Wednesday, March (2) Consider providing attorneys with the abil-
18th, NYSBA will be streaming out a webinar ity to conduct telephone and video conferences
titled “Cyber-Protect Your Firm When You Work from home.
From Home.” The implications of the COVID-19 • Attorneys may be tempted to use free servic-
outbreak only further demonstrates why it is so es, which may not be secure, or use services
important to understand how to protect client that keep recordings of conversations and
confidences and the reason why the Commit- meetings by default. Leaving those recordings
tee has recommended that NYSBA support a out of the firm’s control and protection is not
proposal to include one credit of cybersecurity prudent.

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