What is privacy regulatory claims coverage in a cyber liability policy?
Wow. That’s a mouthful.
The regulatory coverage in a cyber liability policy actually pays for and protects you against the fines and sanctions that may be levied against you from state, local and federal governments for not properly ensuring the data that you’re responsible for.
Don’t get caught, make sure this coverage is in your cyber liability policy.
Does your business include providing notary services for your clients?
If it does, you may have a potential coverage gap in your errors and omissions insurance policy.
In the times that we live in today with the COVID virus in the state mandated social distancing rules and regulations, the notary industry has come up with what they call RON services, remote online notary services. This basically allows the notary to perform notary reacts without the signer of the documents physically appearing in front of the notary. And while this may be a great thing to do now, during these times, it does pose insurance concerns and coverage issues.
Most errors and omissions policies which cover notary acts contain an exclusion or exclusionary wording that prohibits a notary act without the signer of the documents physically appearing in front of the notary.
Well, if you are notarizing a document online, obviously the signer of the document is not physically in front of you. What do you do?
I suggest that you call your insurance broker that sold you your errors and omissions policy and have him or her confirm with the insurance carrier, that the RON services will in fact be covered under your policy.
We at Integrity First Corporation have called all the carriers that we deal with for the errors and omissions coverage and they all have answered positively with regards to the remote online notary services. They have confirmed that the policies will respond to the RON services provided that those services have been done in accordance with the state approved guidelines and regulations.
So again, you need to do the same. Call your broker and confirm that coverage does exist for these types of services in your policy.
Hey, in these crazy times, as employers, we all have employees working from home…and although I’m not going to be able to give you advice on where to go for a good haircut, I am in a position to be able to give you three pretty good tips on how to keep your business information safe when your employees are working from home.
First thing you need to do is make sure that your employees actually are working from a secure internet connection from their house. They really should be working with a WPA2 connection. And I think most people have that nowadays at their houses.
But there are some older systems that are still out there being used and they’re using a WEP key, which is not very secure. So, you want to make sure that that they’re not using that.
Second thing – Make sure that when your employees are working from home, that they still actually lock their computer when they are done for the day (or even leave the room)…so your business data is safe. The mere fact that they’re working from home and not in your office doesn’t mean that the information that they’re working with can’t be stolen or mistakenly sent to somebody.
I mean, a lot of us have little kids running around and who’s to say you get up and leave, little Johnny comes and starts tapping on the computer keys, and says “Can I get on Facebook?”
Next thing you know all of your business information is sent to little Johnny’s 150 closest friends. You don’t want to get into that situation.
Lastly, make sure that you give your employees their own computer to work from home. Don’t expect or ask your employees to use their personal computer to do your work. You want to keep church and state separated, so to speak. When they’re working on your business, you want to make sure that they’re using your computer. You don’t want them paying their personal bills on your computer or your business bills on their personal computer…it just doesn’t mix. Not a good thing. We at INF hope these tips help you out.
A question that frequently arises in the world of professional liability insurance is “what limits of liability should a lawyer or law firm carry?”
To me, there is a simple answer to this question.
There are two parts to a set of professional liability insurance limits. The first part is the “per claim” limit of liability. This is the most that an insurance carrier will pay for both the cost to defend any one claim and any subsequent “loss” or “damages” sustained from said claim. It stands to reason that the per claim limit of liability should be enough to cover both defense costs and a payout from a claim stemming from your highest valued case.
The second part of a set of professional liability insurance limits is the “aggregate” limit of liability. This is the maximum amount of coverage for the entire policy year. As the per claim limit should be selected to cover the worst of potential claims, your aggregate limit should be enough to cover your most expensive two or three claims.
If you find yourself thinking that your current coverage may not be suited to cover your biggest exposure, consult your broker on what the procedure and cost will be to obtain the limits you need. You may be pleasantly surprised at how little the cost is to improve your coverage.
ACCEPTING GIFTS
Know the rules regarding gifts. Generally, a lawyer may receive modest, unsolicited gifts from clients(1). However, a lawyer should not solicit substantial gifts from a client, including testamentary gifts, unless the client is a close relative (2).
1 See MODEL RULES OF PROF’L CONDUCT R.1.8(c) (1983) (amended 2013). 2 Id.
Tip courtesy of www.attorneyprotective.com
Procrastination avoidance tips include:
Tip courtesy of www.attorneyprotective.com
I have read several articles and blog posts on cyber security and privacy data breaches but few pertained specifically to law firms. Fewer still provided information on actual breaches or cyber-attacks on law firms. The blog written by attorney Paul Lafayette on the Professional Solutions Web Site does a good job addressing this issue. Follow the link to read more………. www.psicinsurance.com/posts-articles/attorneys/risk-management/what-do-data-breaches-mean-for-client-confidentiality.aspx
It all starts out innocently enough. You decide to stop into your favorite coffee place. You order a drink, sit down, and pull out your laptop or other mobile device. You don’t want to use your precious data from your wireless plan, so you think “No worries, they offer free wifi here.” You connect to the free wifi and start browsing. You check your email, your bank account and then online shop while you finish your drink. A perfectly innocuous afternoon…or so you thought. Little did you know that the person sitting across from you, seemingly having a day similar to yours, was capturing all of your online movements and information. They were then able to check your email, access your bank account and shop online using your PayPal and Amazon accounts.
They were able to gather all of your information using a fairly simple program called a packet sniffer (or packet analyzer). These programs are easy to install and use, but best of all, some of them are free, or so a hacker would say. Because it is so simple, this exploit is used all of the time with free wifi.
When you go online using a wireless connection, you communicate via packets with the router. Packets contain all of the information for the web page that you are using, including any text that you may type, such as your credit card information or passwords. One web page can consist of multiple packets. A packet sniffer can connect to the same wireless network and collect copies of these packets. It then will put the packets together like you would piece together a puzzle. Once the sniffer has put the pieces back together, the person implementing the sniffer has the information of everyone on the network for the entire time that they were there.
The reason that packet sniffers work with free wifi is because there is no encryption algorithm in place. If the wireless router employs an encryption technique, the packets become encrypted, and thus, unreadable to the sniffer. They can still collect your packets, but they can’t do anything with them. It would be like someone having a puzzle where none of the pieces fit together. With encryption, the router knows how to decrypt your packets, but no one else can.
If you are required to enter a password for the wireless network, that normally means that it is encrypted. However, if the password is known to everyone, then the packet sniffer knows as well, and you are back where you started. Therefore, you want to connect to a network that has a protected key.
Before connecting to a network, look to see the encryption type. You want to make sure that it is WPA2. Two types of networks that you want to stay away from are WPA and WEP. These are easily hacked and thus, should never be used. If you are on a WIndows machine, to see the encryption type, click on the wireless indicator and select your network. The encryption type will be displayed under “Security Type”.
But wait, I still want to be able to use free wifi…is that even possible?
It is possible to save your data plan and still make use of the free wifi when you employ a virtual private network, or a VPN. When you use a VPN, it encrypts the packets for you only, thus making your packet puzzle impossible for a packet sniffer to solve. Using a VPN is easy, as you just sign up for a VPN account with one of the many VPN providers. The cost is normally less than $50 per year.
You can use your VPN account with all of your devices. Generally, tablets come with the functionality for a VPN connection built into the settings. You will need to consult the VPN service that you signed up with for specifics. If you want to use the VPN on a laptop or desktop, you will generally need to download an executable program from the VPN service and install it. Then, every time you want to connect to a free wifi network, you will launch the VPN program first, sign in, and then feel free to safely browse the internet in obscurity.
I don’t want to sign up for a VPN and I don’t mind using my data.
If you don’t mind using your data in your phone plan, then connecting to your phone or tablet’s personal hotspot is the most secure option. Simply turn on your hotspot and connect your device. You may be using your data plan, but you can do so knowing that your data is safe.