Lose your mobile, damage your company

A survey of British legal firms shows its workers are putting clients at risk by misplacing mobile devices that contain crucial and confidential legal data.

The survey reveals 24% of firms questioned admitted to misplacing devices containing confidential data. A whopping 37% of lawyers say if they lose their mobile devices, the data contained in them would be vulnerable to hackers.

Some even said hackers were smarter than the average lawyer.

But only 13% of firms questioned say they employed data encryption protection and said it could not be breached. A disappointing 90% of lawyers said they remained confident a single password would remain effective in protecting confidential data.

Hacker-turned-security-consultant Robert Schifreen told ITWire: “You can download cracking software from Google that can break the average password in less than 30 minutes. These findings show just how naive the legal profession is when it comes to data security.”