Legal Businesses Are Failing to Report Data Breaches

The real extent of the legal sector’s problem with data breaches has been revealed by a survey which suggests many in the industry delay reporting data breaches, or even ignore them entirely.

Data breaches have hit the news already in 2017 with high profile cases such as mobile phone company Three – where an employee’s password was stolen in March and the data of 200,000 customers compromised.

Then in April, cybercriminals seized 250,000 customer records at Wonga – including bank account details.

However, it seems these stories may be only the tip of the iceberg.

The Crown Records Management Survey, undertaken by Censuswide, polled 408 IT decision makers in companies of between 100 and 1,000 employees across the country.

It provided some shocking results which suggest many of the UK’s data breaches are going unreported.

Some of the statistics for the legal sector are below, with mixed results:

• 17% have delayed reporting a data breach to senior management.
• 17% have chosen not to report a breach to senior management at all.
• However nobody surveyed was unsure what constitutes a data breach – better than the national average of 8%.

“Whilst the legal sector is doing better than most when it comes to understanding what entails a data breach, there is still a long way to go. The frequency of data breaches that go unreported is especially worrying in a sector such as legal, which handles large quantities of sensitive data,” said Dominic Johnstone, Head of Information Management at Crown Records Management.

“Some of these statistics really are shocking and suggest that data breaches may be far more common and more widespread than many people realise. These results also indicate a culture inside many companies that the best response to a breach is to ignore it or keep it quiet.

“Perhaps this comes from a fear of the loss of reputation which can be experienced when breaches are publicised. Or perhaps it is simply down to lack of a clear procedures and information management in the business. Either way, the implications are serious, and the fact still remains that data breaches must legally be reported within 72 hours.”

The latter will bring in huge fines for businesses which suffer breaches as a result of poor compliance. It also sets a strict timeframe for the reporting of breaches – with fines for those who do not meet them.

“It is absolutely vital that businesses tackle this culture of secrecy because in future unprotected data loss will simply not be acceptable,” Johnstone said. “In fact, it shouldn’t be acceptable now.

“Having a clear data protection and information management programme in place is vital for businesses to avoid these kind of problems. It should be very clear who is responsible for reporting breaches and who they should be reported to.

“Until businesses grasp how much a breach can cost them – both financially and in terms of reputation – this problem is not going to go away.”

(Source: Crown Records Management)