Last week, around 30 per cent of respondents to Consero Group’s annual General Counsel survey told researchers that they were not prepared for cyber attacks. More than a quarter of general counsel added that their company had experienced a cyber security breach in the past 12 months.

Cyber attacks

Meanwhile, the Canadian Lawyer Magazine reported that general counsel across Canada are often asking their IT department how best to deal with the increasing number of cyber attacks on their organisation, with many adding that cyber threats have flown up the priority ladder in recent years.
‘Every company takes steps to protect their information — but there is an element out there that will utilise the resources they have to access information and it becomes that much more important that we do everything we can to reasonably protect against that risk,’ Robert Piasentin, general counsel for Vancouver-based IT consulting firm Sierra Systems told the Canadian Lawyer Magazine.

Data breaches

Another survey – from the Association of Corporate Counsel – found that ‘data breaches and protection’ was one of the key issues concerning general counsel.
Lou Milrad, of Toronto-based Milrad Law, said that IT departments should reach out to their in-house legal teams, in the same way that lawyers must be more involved with IT directors and chief information officers.