WHEN CYBERCRIME STRIKES YOUR BUSINESS
Imagine a scenario: You have a business with a physical location. Perhaps a brick and mortar building, or maybe a planted field surrounded by a fence. Any kind of physical location.
One day you arrive at the business and discover the location has been broken into. You look around, talk with employees on scene, and discover that business property has been taken. You appear to be the victim of crime. What do you do?
The knee jerk reaction is to call the police. After that, you might reach out to an insurance agent or call legal counsel. During your call to legal counsel, you might ask about your rights as a victim or about the insurance contract.
How would you react to cybercrime?
In all likelihood your business also has a digital presence. An online presence with company and customer data, commercial secrets, intellectual property, etc. This information is vulnerable to cybercrime. When this information is compromised or stolen, why would your speed dial list be any different from the one above?
Role of an attorney during cybercrime
Legal counsel can play an important role when your company is the victim of cyber crime. For starters, attorneys often have working relationships with law enforcement. Those relationships might allow an attorney to pinpoint the correct law enforcement agency or department to report the crime to, and to follow up with.* With cybercrime becoming a top concern of local, state, and federal law enforcement, precision communication can keep you from getting lost in an alphabet soup of agencies.
Precision communication might also make the difference between losing a little versus a lot of information - cyber bleeding versus cyber hemorrhaging. Secondly, legal counsel can help make investigations understandable to you. Your legal counsel can help explain many things that make an investigation bewildering to a nonprofessional - the terminology, the government requests, the procedure, the delays, the people involved, and so forth. Think of legal counsel as a guide in this respect. The bottom line is that you have a business to run, and partaking in a cyber investigation will be an effort that requires some delegation to experienced hands. Consider making an attorney part of that team.
Not a day goes by when we don't hear about a cyber incident affecting the private sector. Before it happens to your business think about who you need on speed dial and consider the important role lawyers play in responding to cybercrime investigations.
*The possibility of working relationships with law enforcement is not meant to, and does not imply, an attorney's improper influence over law enforcement. It simply speaks to the possible existence of communication channels between the two.
This post is informational and should not be considered legal advice. For further questions regarding the subject matter, it is best to consult with an attorney.
