“ILTA’s 2015 Technology Survey Published: Security is King, Queen and Pawn” – Jobst Elster, InsideLegal

Security is on the minds and the agendas of Legal IT teams. It’s no wonder. The Legal profession is no different than the rest of the business world. Experian, Trump Hotels, Ashley Madison and the FBI are just a few of the organizations to suffer from major data breaches in 2015.

Recently, security expert Brian Krebs revealed that his own PayPal account was hacked twice due to what he described as, “a lack of authentication and security protocols on PayPal’s end.”

Let’s take a look at three charts from the ILTA 2015 Technology Survey which illustrate the growth of security in Legal.

If It’s Mobile, Encrypt It

Are you using any of the following encryption technologies as a security measure at your firm? (multiple responses allowed)

• #1 is laptop hard drive encryption – 63%
• #2 is automatic email encryption – 56%
• #3 is removable media encryption – 44%
• #4 is smartphone device encryption – 44%

The use of encryption is climbing, especially on smartphones. Just two years ago 28% of firms were using encryption on smartphones. In 2015, 44% of firms were.

Two-factor Authentication Use is Increasing Rapidly

Other than encryption, which of the following security measures does your firm use?

• Two-factor authentication for external access, not polled in previous years, is the #4 measure used at 41%.
• The leading measures are Ethical Walls and Intrusion Prevention/Detection.

No Look at Mobility Would be Complete Without…MDM

Which third-party systems are you using for MDM?                                           (multiple responses allowed)

• Mobile Device Management is now used at 54% of firms, up 15% in two years.
• AirWatch is used at 13% of reporting firms, which is an increase of 5% in the past year.
• Other solutions, e.g., MobileIron, Good Technology, and XenMobile are flat or down, except for IBM/Fiberlink MaaS360 which gained a point, now at 5%.

We listen to legal teams

At Mobile Helix we work closely with law firms to understand their mobility needs. One of the balancing acts in mobile apps is that of security and ease of use. Authentication is tricky. It needs to be challenging but simple and quick for users.

Our CEO and co-founder, Seth Hallem, speaking to LegalIT Insider about LINK’s latest feature, two-factor authentication, said, “Security has to be layered in. While it will have some user impact, our goal is to make it as easy as possible…”

With the addition of TouchID or PIN code for two-factor authentication in our LINK app, firms get an additional layer of security and greater ease of use. If you would like to try our LINK app with our new tw0-factor authentication, just contact us: [email protected].

–Maureen

On Twitter we are @mobilehelix.

Also read: Adoption of the Surface Pro and iOS in Legal, my earlier post based on the ILTA 2015 Legal Technology Survey.