There is a danger lurking in the dark within your firm. Nobody is monitoring this danger, and it is multiplying rampantly. Not only is this danger increasing rapidly, the number of different places where this danger is hiding is also spreading. And it’s all putting your firm at tremendous risk. No, this is not a sinister Stephen King tale, but it could be very harmful nonetheless. The danger is dark data that is produced in the regular course of business, but is uncategorized with no apparent business value. The data is stored on unofficial repositories that can include shared drives, local drives and unencrypted USB sticks, and the problem keeps on growing with the advent of cloud solutions. For law firms, this includes client-matter data that has been kept indefinitely on these unsanctioned repositories. The data could include personal health information or highly confidential materials and might not serve a business purpose anymore, but is kept regardless. Worst of all, it is not organized or controlled. Sanctioned data repositories are under the control of and monitored by your IT administrators, and dark data is not subjected to many of these controls and safeguards. Giving end users flexibility to store documents and data with no controls might offer a short-term benefit, but in the long run the risks will outweigh any of them.
The opportunities for hackers to infiltrate or hijack your IT systems are rampant and law firms are prime targets for phishing and hijacking scams. Further, regulations such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act and Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health extend stringent requirements to law firms with potentially large penalties at stake for noncompliance. The IT security team is responsible for avoiding and monitoring the actual breaches, but it is equally important to get a handle on the governance of the data.
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