Cyber fraud attacks continue to be on the rise internationally, including in Nova Scotia, where the vast majority of law firms in this province are small businesses.

As we reported in January 2022 (see The Best Offense: Protecting Against Cyber Vulnerabilities), the results of a recent study by CyberCatch, a cyber security company (see CyberCatch Q4 2021 Small and Medium Sized Businesses Vulnerabilities Report), show that within their Canadian law firm sample, 85.5% of websites had spoofing vulnerabilities, 81% had clickjacking vulnerabilities, and 40% had sniffing vulnerabilities. By comparison, for the U.S. law firm sample, similar vulnerabilities were found in 29.9%, 25.8% and 10.2% respectively of law firms. In other words, law firms in Canada were three times more likely than a firm in the U.S. to have these vulnerabilities. This increased level of vulnerability in Canada was higher as compared to the U.S. across all ten business segments.

In addition to the numerous cyber-related fraud alerts that we’ve published in recent years, the Government of Canada has released “Get Cyber Safe: A Guide for Small and Medium Businesses“, a guide “designed to help Canadians who own or manage a small or medium business understand the cyber security risks they face, and provide them with practical advice on how to better protect their business and employees from cyber crime”. It helps small and medium firms in:

  1. “Determining what assets you need to secure (essentially, anything of value managed or owned by your business).
  2. Identifying the threats and risks that could affect those assets or your business overall.
  3. Identifying what safeguards you should put in place to deal with threats and secure assets.
  4. Monitoring your safeguards and assets to prevent or manage security breaches.
  5. Responding to cyber security issues as they occur (such as an attempt to break into business systems).
  6. Updating and adjusting to safeguards as needed (in response to changes in assets, threats and risks).”

For tips to avoid being victimized, or to report or seek advice on dealing with fraud and scam attempts, contact Cynthia Nield at cnield@lians.ca or 902 423 1300, x346.