While major breaches may point to a wide array of targets for hackers, lawyers are high on the list of potential victims. As U.S. Department of Homeland Security assistant general counsel for cyber and infrastructure programs Gabriel Taran said of preferred targets, lawyers “are very popular, and that's not a good thing.”

Taran and others across the private and public sectors addressed law firms' current state of cyber affairs on June 15 at Thomson Reuters' CFO/CIO/COO Forum. Their panel, titled “A Rumor of War: Regulation, Revelations & the State of Cybersecurity in 2017,” looked at what happens in a breach, how law firms have and should respond, and challenges to pushing forward with security initiatives.

Integral to an up-to-date cybersecurity approach is getting the attention of the C-suite, or partner in a law firm, level. Timothy Murphy, president at Thomson Reuters Special Services, said that CIOs and CFOs are necessary for bridging that gap.