publication of the International Legal Technology Association
Issue link: https://epubs.iltanet.org/i/221442
SECURE SOCIAL NETWORKING FOR BETTER ATTORNEY WORKFLOW firm with thousands of professionals and clients — securely? A large law firm, for instance, has all the concomitant characteristics of a social network structure: •Groups of social influencers and followers platform. Regarding security, the cloud has grown increasingly sophisticated. Law firm IT departments and their attorneys can now rely in part on cloud infrastructure experts to configure and update the firewalls and security policies of the cloud servers and databases. Cloud vendors such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) have achieved military-grade control over their virtual networking environment, including selection of their own IP address range, creation of subnets and configuration of route tables and network gateways. Users can customize the network configuration easily for their AWS VPC. For example, they can create a public-facing subnet for their Web servers that have access to compliance with various security protocols such as SOC 1/SSAE16/ISAW 3402, FISMA Moderate, PCI DSS Level 1, ISO 27001, U.S. International Traffic in Arms Regulations and FIPS, as well as other compliance initiatives like HIPAA. the Internet and place their backend systems (such as databases or application servers) in a privatefacing subnet with no Internet access. Users can also leverage multiple layers of security, including security groups and network access control lists, to help control access to the AWS virtual servers (i.e., EC2 instances) in each subnet. Furthermore, users can create a hardware virtual private network (VPN) connection between their corporate data centers and their VPC, and leverage the Amazon cloud as an extension of their corporate data center. •Webs of different professional and social associations •Project teams formed for specific client projects The aggregate of their interactions (i.e., communications and work product) constitute the proprietary big data of the organization from which the law firm can leverage and monetize. CLOSED CIRCUIT SOCIAL NETWORKS There is an answer: closed circuit social networks managed and controlled by a law firm in which the firm's staff and clients are invited to participate. This closed circuit social network can be implemented on the law firm's own servers or, preferably, in the cloud. Cloud-based platforms, when properly configured, are preferable for this application because they are readily accessible from around the globe and are scalable depending on data usage and the number of users on the CLOUD SECURITY For those who are concerned about security in the cloud, AWS offers the Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), which allows users to provision a logically isolated section in the Amazon cloud. Users have complete