The dramatic rise in electronic economic espionage against U.S. corporations came into full view with a report on the trend issued by the U.S. government last November. That same month, the Federal Bureau of Investigation held a meeting in New York City with some of the weaker links in the online spy game: law firms.

It’s an issue that should be getting the attention of in-house counsel, especially as they share sensitive — and potentially valuable — data with outside counsel.

Rich with client information, law firms are often much less equipped to fend off cyberattacks than the corporations they represent. Ergo “a hacker can hit a law firm and it’s a much, much easier quarry,” Mary Galligan, head of the cyberdivision in the FBI’s New York City office told Bloomberg. Likewise, in a series of blog posts on this issue currently running in Forbes, cybersecurity expert Alan Paller says: “The important files relating to clients’ international activities are usually much easier to find in the law firms’ files than in the corporate files.”

Digital risk consultancy Stroz Friedberg has advised both law firms and corporate clients on this growing problem. Firms need to take a risk-oriented approach to protecting client information, says company co-president Eric Friedberg, a former federal prosecutor and an expert in cybercrime response. At the same time, he says, there are important questions in-house counsel can ask about how their files will be protected (see Stroz Friedberg’s Security Questions Corporations Should Ask Their Law Firms, below).

“Attackers go where the money is,” says Friedberg. These days, law firms should assume that hackers will infiltrate their network, and they should identify which digital assets are most at risk and put the most security around those areas, he says.

Knowing what is of value to potential cyberattackers can help dictate a security strategy. Intrusions that are backed by state entities have been increasing, and state-sponsored agents are particularly interested in information that could prove useful in the mergers and acquisitions context, Friedberg says. So while a merger between two Chicago-based companies may not prove particularly alluring to foreign government hackers, major deals that involve a state-sponsored entity or otherwise affect the interests of a foreign country present much more risk, says Friedberg.

“We’re advising law firms to segregate that data, and put much more security around that data,” he says.

One common way hackers can infiltrate a firm or company is through a method called “spear phishing.” An email arrives from someone who appears to be a trusted source, and that email contains a link or an attachment that, when opened, gives a hacker instant access to the recipient’s computer and/or internal network. “Typically, the link appears to fail, or it takes you to some sort of innocuous material, and the user doesn’t think twice about it,” says Friedberg. “And now that computer is completely owned.”

And yet, he adds: “The disparity in the levels of security we’re seeing is startling.” Some law firms have a very strong culture of security, at or beyond that of their corporate clients. Others continue to prioritize the convenience of a flat, open network over the security of a network with more barriers.

“The issue ends up being that the lawyers are so oriented to the convenient use of computers,” Friedberg notes. “It presents real challenges to pervasively establish a culture of security, because convenience has to be subjugated to secure computer use.”

How can in-house counsel get a better idea of how secure a law firm is? Friedberg offers a dozen security questions that corporations should ask their law firms.

STROZ FRIEDBERG’S SECURITY QUESTIONS CORPORATIONS SHOULD ASK THEIR LAW FIRMS

1. Do the managing partner and the executive committee champion and drive a culture of security?

2. Does the firm secure email, remote access, and servers with RSA tokens or another form of dual-factor authentication?

3. Does the firm force complex passwords on workstations and servers; limit the use of IT personnel with highly privileged credentials; and closely monitor the logs of such highly privileged accounts?

4. Does the firm log access to its clients’ files, so who touched what file can be reconstructed?

5. Does the firm conduct regular anti-phishing training?

6. If the firm has offices in countries associated with state-sponsored espionage, how does the firm deal with the security implications of that fact?

7. Does the firm broadly grant users access to data on the network, or is access granted on a need-to-know basis?

8. Does the firm use secure enclaves, where highly sensitive data receives higher levels of security protection and monitoring?

9. Does the firm have state-of-the-art intrusion detection, session-recording, log-aggregation, and enterprise forensic tools?

10. Does the firm employ highly trained security personnel who are skilled in sophisticated incident response?

11. Does the firm have an incident response plan and pre-designated outside incident response providers?

12. Does the firm keep sufficient perimeter logs and monitor anomalous activity?

Readily available, easy-to-use software can encrypt a computer hard drive so thoroughly it would take years for a hacker to break in. But that seems to be no impediment for U.S. government prosecutors, who have obtained an order compelling a Romanian immigrant to disclose the contents of her computer.

The case raises questions about whether requiring someone to unlock a computer’s protected files amounts to a violation of the Fifth Amendment’s protection against self-incrimination.

The judge’s order establishes a “very dangerous precedent that a person may be forced to assist in her prosecution in a way the law has not seen ever before,” said Phillip DuBois, who represents the woman charged in a mortgage and real estate fraud case.

On Tuesday, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals refused to get involved, saying Ramona Fricosu’s case must first be resolved in District Court before her attorney can appeal.

Fricosu now has until Monday to turn over an unencrypted version of the hard drive of a laptop.

Federal prosecutors argue that not allowing the government access to encrypted computers would make it impossible to prosecute crimes such as terrorism, child exploitation, and drug trafficking. The U.S. attorney’s office declined to comment on Tuesday’s appeals court decision.

The San Francisco-based Electronic Freedom Foundation has opposed the government’s actions in the case because it believes easy-to-use encryption software should be used by everybody to prevent computer crimes and fraud, said Hanni Meena Fakhoury, an attorney for the foundation. The case could render those privacy protections useless, he said.

“The government is flipping that on its head and saying encryption is only good for criminals to hide what they’re doing,” Fakhoury said.

A judge last month sidestepped the issue of ordering Fricosu to turn over her password, and instead ordered her to turn over an unencrypted version of the hard drive. Prosecutors had argued the password was like gaining a key to a lock box and other instances where a defendant signs documents to allow investigators to access overseas accounts.

U.S. District Judge Robert E. Blackburn noted that the contents of one’s mind is off limits, but he ordered Fricosu to turn over the data, citing a Vermont case that related to a 2006 border crossing search in which a man was later ordered to do the same.

The courts in that case noted that an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent had found child pornography on the computer but couldn’t access it later because of encryption, and turning over the unencrypted hard drive added nothing to the evidence the government already had.

Blackburn also noted there were only a few cases on which to base his ruling.

In Fricosu’s case, “the government has no idea what’s on that computer,” DuBois said. That element makes it different from other cases, he said.

In a procedure agreed upon by DuBois and federal prosecutors, federal agents would meet Fricosu at a designated place with the laptop, which was seized during a search warrant. Then, the government will either look away or go to another room while Fricosu enters a password on her laptop and hands it back to agents so the hard drive can be copied.

But there’s a twist.

“It is possible that Ms. Fricosu has no ability to decrypt the computer, because she probably did not set up the encryption on that computer and may not know or remember the password or passphrase,” DuBois said in a statement Tuesday.

Fricosu and her ex-husband, Scott Whatcott, are accused of targeting distressed homeowners in Colorado. Prosecutors allege the two promised to pay off homeowners’ mortgages but then filed fraudulent documents in court to obtain title and sell the homes without paying the outstanding mortgage.

DuBois described Fricosu as an immigrant from Romania who has two sons, no technical expertise in computers, and whose computer was encrypted with what he believed was software available on the Internet or at stores.

With a few clicks of the mouse, readily available 256-bit and 512-bit encryption software makes computer hard drives almost impossible to break into, even for hackers.

“Conceptually, it is possible to break encryption,” but it could take years, said Jay Bavisi of the U.S.-based EC-Council, a so-called “white hat” and ethical hacker group that tests network and computer security. “It can be a time-consuming and resource draining exercise in an already stressed environment.”

In one of the few examples of a similar case, a sheriff’s detective under suspicion for improper use of a law enforcement database told investigators in Washington state in 2004 that he simply forgot the password to the encrypted portion of his computer hard drive. The detective retired, and the computer’s hard drive was placed into storage.

“We apparently did not ever crack the code to get in,” sheriff’s spokeswoman Cindi West said.

Copyright 2012 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Adapted from Susanne Gargiulo for CNN
The world’s workforce is undergoing a revolution which will change the way we think about employment, office spaces and hierarchy – and may also shift global power centers to the developing countries, experts say.

As workers gain more freedom over when and where they work, the line between self-employed and employed will become increasingly blurred. Office spaces will become more like meeting places where mobile workers occasionally gather, and senior leaders will come out of their offices to engage more closely with workers. This, in turn, will eliminate some of the traditional hierarchies and create a flatter corporate power structure.

Among the first things likely to go, according to Peter Thomson and Alison Maitland, co-authors of the book “Future Work: How businesses can adapt and thrive in the new world of work,” is the idea of a fulltime job. “The assumption has been that work is a fulltime job, but that’s rubbish,” says Thomson. Instead, work will be chopped into more easily digestible chunks and sandwiched around other priorities in our lives, such as our children. “It will be life first and work second, as opposed to the other way around,” he says.

Another thing likely to fall to the wayside is the assumption that we have to work our way to the top and then quit. ‘We have this strange idea that once we reach the top of the mountain we have to jump off the edge instead of working ourselves down the hill again,” says Thomson. Instead, he says, those hitting their 50s could choose to cut back working hours.

“We’ll see more networks of individuals contributing to a common goal, people coming in for projects and disappearing again,” says Thomson.

This will also change the way corporations manage employees — or rather, stop managing them. “Once you allow people the freedom to work as they want, managers can’t control the input, they have to measure output,” says Thomson.

It’s an approach that is being implemented by companies such as clothing and electronics retailers GAP and Best Buy in the U.S., who measure results as opposed to hours worked. “They don’t care when or where their employees get the job done, as long as they get the results,” says Thomson, adding that studies show flexible hours usually increase both innovation and productivity.

While productivity speaks for itself, experts say there are some key drivers behind these major shifts. One is that more women in the workforce are creating a demand for more flexible hours. Another is that there’s a new generation of entrepreneurial graduates who don’t see themselves staying long-term with one major employer, and want more freedom to work where they want and when they want.

Ultimately, that means we have to say goodbye to things like traditional job security and career paths.
“In this new world, everyone will need to become a CEO of themselves,” says Richard Judy, founder and chairman of TORQworks, and an expert on workforce development. “They have to consider themselves a company, and as a good CEO think about what is needed in the marketplace. They need to regularly think about how knowledge and skills can be honed.”

The need to stay relevant is emphasized by the changes taking place in corporations. As global competition increases, companies will go anywhere to find the necessary talent, increase productivity, and lower cost. Already, knowledge and expertise previously thought to be the prerogative of the west is moving to places in the far east, where universities are churning out highly capable graduates.

“This is the last time in world history that the western world will set the standard, says Axel Olesen, CEO of NextNordic. “From now on, others will be more important. Asia, Latin America, even Africa. They want it more and they’re trying harder. We’re going to need a radical change to maintain our standard of living.”

At the University of California Berkeley School of Information, they are stepping up to this new reality by deliberately changing the curriculum of their students to make them more competitive.

Employers are increasingly looking for a new kind of graduate, says Dean AnnaLee Saxenian, one with the understanding and expertise to collaborate effectively across wider areas of expertise and functionality. They also need to be entrepreneurial, prepared to solve complex problems, and flexible in adapting to a changing work environment. “These skills were typically not valued in the past, but will be richly rewarded in the economy of 2020,” she says.

And if you thought graduation signaled the end of school, think again. In this new world of work, lifelong learning and continual education is crucial, as is constant vigilance about changes in the marketplace. “People really have to be prepared to adapt and to change their career in midlife,” says Thomson.

So, while this revolution in working practices is likely to give us more freedom, it does seem to come with its own set of stresses. Thomson believes they’re worth it. “Empowerment is a word that gets overused, but I think these changes are genuinely giving some power to the individual,” he says.

The former Windows Vista eliminated the actual word “Start” and just has an icon there, but Windows 8 eliminates the entire “Start” menu concept. So that button you mastered in Windows 95 and spent the past 17 years getting used to? Its days are numbered. Instead, there are two new elements.

The first new element is a transparent taskbar where all of your applications and menus reside.

Rebecca Wright, a veteran at training large firm lawyers on new technology, said the change will be significant — but that such changes are incrementally less troublesome as firms are increasingly staffed with younger, technology-savvy attorneys. ”We have some new tools we can use. We try to do some just-in-time training. We can put things on your computer that say, ‘Here’s where you used to do things with the ‘Start’ button, now you do them here,’” she explained, in Richmond, Va.

Computer makers’ penchant for copying each other’s interface ideas isn’t new, which could help Wright and her trainer peers because the changes may not be completely new to users. The concept of an interface with a transparent menu bar goes back to Apple’s introduction of it as part of Mac OS X in 2002. It’s known as the “dock.”

Going back further, MS-DOS (Microsoft Disk Operating System), based on another company’s system that Microsoft licensed, became popular in 1982. It was a pretty good clone of Digital Research’s CP/M (Control Program for Microcomputers) from 1975. Then, in 1992, Windows 3.1 launched. It was a decent clone of the Apple Lisa interface from 1983, which Apple itself copied from Xerox’s 1970s technology. Next came Windows 95, which was essentially Apple Macintosh 85. Now we have Windows 8 copying something that’s been mainstream for a decade. Actually, Mac OS X in 2002 copied ideas from other systems developed in 1988. Maybe that’s what the “8″ in Windows 8 really indicates.

Back to the case of the missing “Start” button in Windows 8. “I’m finding more and more, attorneys that are technology-savvy have some experience with Macs. So you could use that in your training,” Wright acknowledged. However, she said speculation about 2014 installations in law firms may be too hopeful. Based on a late 2012 or 2013 Windows 8 launch, “It would probably take a couple of years to actually make that jump. I would say two or three years, maybe,” she said.

Microsoft has a habit of delaying major product launches. It’s a good possibility that Windows 8 won’t ship until the middle of 2013, which means it may not see law office desktops until 2016.

The second big change in Windows 8 is an alternative smartphone-style interface that Microsoft calls Metro. Where the “Start” button used to be, in the bottom left corner of your screen, you’ll instead find a toggle button — click or swipe it to swap between conventional and Metro’s phone-like designs. But that’s based on a definition of “phone-like” circa today, meaning what Apple launched five years ago in 2007. BigLaw counselors will be lucky to get this onto desktops nearly 10 years later.

“That’s an interesting way to go,” Wright noted. “Attorneys really have embraced smartphones. I see more and more attorneys with iPads these days. Giving them the ability to work more in that mode that they’re used to already could definitely be a benefit.”

At the least, “I think they’re more conditioned now to change … Something is always changing,” Wright added. But, she said, “I don’t think it will be as big an impact as going from DOS to Windows. That was huge.”

Top 10 punitive damages awards of the year in California:

Source: Law Offices of Horvitz and Levy http://www.horvitzlevy.com

The problem with Microsoft is that it continually changes focus when it delivers a new version of Internet Explorer. IE9 has a much different focus than IE8, IE7, and IE6. Google, on the other hand, has released different versions of Chrome, but the focus has always been on improving the entire line of Chrome.

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