w w w . C A N A D I A N L a w y e r m a g . c o m N o v e m b e r / D e c e m b e r 2 0 1 4 31
C
H
A
O
S
BUT
MAKE
INTERNAL
SYSTEMS
MORE
EFFICIENT
AND
SAFER.
LAW
FIRMS
MUST
TURN
THEIR
MINDS
TO
BETTER
INFORMATION
GOVERNANCE
TO
NOT
ONLY
PROTECT
CLIENT
INFORMATION
BY
LUIS
MILLÁN
miCk
CoulAs
I
t appears to have become the new norm. Not a week
seems to go by without a report about a data breach.
America's largest bank, JPMorgan Chase, is one of the
latest high-profile victims, and it is still reeling from
this summer's cyber attack that compromised 76 mil-
lion household accounts — the equivalent of 65 per cent
of all U.S. households — and seven million businesses.
Law firms are far from immune. An American multi-
state criminal firm discreetly filed a report in late June
with California authorities, the first U.S. state to adopt
data-breach notification legislation, after a hard drive
containing backup files for one of the firm's servers was
stolen from the locked trunk of an employee's vehicle.
Closer to home, hackers three years ago compromised
the security of seven major Canadian law firms involved
in BHP Billiton's proposed takeover of Saskatchewan's
Potash Corp. Law firms are often seen as a weak link in the cyber-security chain.
All told, 15 per cent of U.S. law firms experienced a security breach in 2012,
