A Story From the Cyber Crypt …

Law Firms and SMBs – Beware of the Breach

In support of this October’s National Cybersecurity Awareness Month, read Netsurion’s cautionary tale… Learn how easily a breach can occur and how to deny what the cyber thieves crave by deploying a Managed Threat Protection platform and Security Operations Center (SOC).

Once upon a time, a haunted law firm operated with the assumption that nothing could penetrate their IT network fortress, from edge to endpoint. It worked like a charmed spell, day-in and day-out, from front-desk greetings and client meetings, to court cases and big data storage. They felt strongly that their clients’ Personally Identifiable Information (PII) was solid, behind a network fortress of stone.
The firm thought they had done everything right to keep the malware mites and ransomware rats at bay. They put a Firewall in place and had Anti-Virus capabilities installed. Even in the Cloud they felt secure, as long as their in-house Anti-Virus Ghost Security Officer was around.
As the legend goes, the law firm has a past…the grim reaper of businesses – Breach – tarnished their foundation and reputation. Breach slithered undetected for months and months infecting the network and all devices. Then Breach oozed to other locations and third-party vendors with silent speed. Day in and day out, Anti-Virus feverously inspected each and every system, comparing against its Most-Wanted list to protect against Breach.
Anti-Virus was always visibly stressed, but one particular night he looked like he’d seen a ghost. Despite protection that Anti-Virus and Firewall provide, Breach was several steps ahead. It slithered in, undetected – knowing the vulnerabilities. The most vulnerable of them all – the human employee who innocently clicks on a phishing link or trusts a trick for a treat.
As nightfall turned to day, that creep Breach had:
  1. Stolen thousands of clients’ data and PII
  2. Lured in a ransomware rat that held all of the law firm’s systems hostage
  3. Invited a “man in the middle” (MITM) to creep into people’s offices, invading their smartphone connection and spying on them via their webcam
  4. Muddied the back-office connected systems with malware – trojans, viruses, and worms
  5. Assaulted with a “drive-by download” from an employee’s computer

Now WAKE UP. It was all a dream; a terrible nightmare. Luckily the haunted law firm had more up its sleeve. Anti-Virus was being watched all along by Cornerstone.IT’s Breach Buster managed security service, which includes the EventTracker security platform + SOC. Their SOC has capabilities that are like kryptonite to Breach – read Netsurion’s EventTracker SOC catch for a global law firm. The managed security platform + SOC can not only find and track an attack in real-time, but also protect every endpoint of every system in place, from location to location – it prevents, predicts, detects, and responds as a comprehensive security solution.

The haunted firm failed its clients by missing the combination of people, process, and technology to bust breaches. In other words, they failed to add leading-edge managed threat protection (a SIEM platform + SOC) through Cornerstone.IT and its partner, Netsurion.

The moral of the story?

Anti-virus and Firewalls are not enough when dealing with ‘breaches’. The haunted law firm story is about just some of the threats out there. Watch out…there are many, many more.

Even vendors you use, that get breached, can impact you and your business due to the system connections. And insider jobs? Humans aren’t perfect and cybercriminals know it. They prey on the weaknesses within your system defenses and on the imperfections of human beings. You need to defend against threats before they destroy your business. Security within your business is your responsibility. So is your clients’ data.

The moral of the story? Contact Cornerstone.IT to secure your workforce through their partnership with Netsurion. Then you can say: “What’s up breaches? We’re ready for you.”

In a world of fear… cybersecurity doesn’t have to be scary.


Cornerstone.IT offers a comprehensive cybersecurity solution that is managed for you. Listen to Cornerstone’s security team as they discuss, Being Proactive About Cybersecurity.

Learn how ransomware is quietly persisting with SMBs through Netsurion’s webcast replay.

Related Resources

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