P2P

53 I L T A N E T . O R G their progress? How are clients holding firms to account for security and how is that changing firms' behavior? • Plans for the next year. Crowdsourcing budget trends, the rate of cloud adoption, and how firms are leveraging AI and automation. A recent study of 20 law firms by Bluevoyant showed that 100% of them had been targeted and attacked by threat actors. Some 15% had clearly been breached, and almost 50% showed signs of potential compromise. 1 These numbers virtually guarantee that if you are reading this column, a human threat actor has probed the defenses of your network. Take a moment to embrace the numb chill that accompanies that awareness, and then empower yourself and your firm to WAKE UP, join forces, and invest in joining this ILTA-led industry-wide effort to band together and take action. Consider what can happen if we do align and coordinate our efforts. Here is just one example of what we could do if we act together. As an industry, we are expanding our cloud adoption, and increasingly law firms operate within the same clouds as their peers, with data hosted on shared vendor platforms. Supply chain breaches are an emerging threat that the industry must address, but our shared adoption of these cloud platforms is a strength. Law firms can leverage their collective influence to drive the security evolution of our vendors. By creating appropriate third-party vetting programs, the legal industry has an opportunity to influence change in the security posture of our third-party partners. We can leverage our collective muscle and demand that vendors do more to help protect our data. When law firms harden their perimeters and become unprofitable targets for threat actors, we will all be safer. By sharing our best security practices with our peers, we can strengthen the defenses of the entire industry. Some of these lessons come at great cost: The 2020 ABA tech survey states 29% of respondents said they had experienced a breach event. 2 The grim truth is that these events are on the rise, and a breach is a matter of when, not if.. The trend will persist unless we marshal ourselves to stop it. We need you to join the effort. And your firm needs you to join the effort. Prepare your firm to take seriously your comprehensive participation in the next ILTA CyberSecurity RFI coming out in (MARCH/APRIL). Remember this: The threat actors are terrorists, and we are their target. We can't change those facts, but we must change our future—together. ILTA Mark Grazman is President of the Conversant Group. He is an entrepreneur and venture capitalist with an established track record of launching, scaling, and leading successful companies. Mark is also committed to social entrepreneurship. While he was at Duke, where he earned his BA in Public Policy and Literature), and continuing thereafter, he helped refugees in Bosnia under the auspices of USAID, worked with former Soviet governments after the fall of communism, given voice to a new generation of leaders in Poland through the internet, and worked to empower US healthcare consumers to make better choices while lowering costs. Other notable experience includes foundation of a non-profit to assist Bosnian refugees, co-teaching a Duke University Public Policy course as part of the Hart Leadership Program, speaking at the National Conference on Black Jewish Relations at Dillard University, and board memberships for a non-profit, a publicly listed Polish fund, and a Chicago-based theatre company. 1. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/over-15-of-a-global-sample-of-law-firms- show-signs-of-compromise-according-to-bluevoyant-sector-17-report-301065918.html 2. ht tps://www.americanbar.org/groups/law_ practice/publications/techrepor t/2020/ cybersecurity/

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