LegalEdge had a remote workforce back when it was still a choice. For ten years, LegalEdge has made in-house legal services accessible to small businesses and start-ups using a uniquely flexible model and a completely remote team of lawyers.

We sat down with Helen to learn more about her security needs and how she uses CyberSmart Active Protect with her remote team.

What were the security and/or compliance challenges you were looking to overcome?

For the most part, the challenges we faced stemmed from the fact that all our lawyers work flexibly. On the one hand, with all that is going on now, this has put us in a fortunate position to continue business as usual. However, with everyone working from home or the coffee shop as well as using their own personal devices, this has the potential of leaving many loose ends that threaten our company’s security – a fairly unique challenge that may not be unique for long, and which CyberSmart really worked with us on.

How is security important to your organisation?

As a law firm, we’re obviously incredibly risk averse – Therefore, security has always been important to our company and is something we actively wanted to get better at. Unlike a lot of businesses, most of the people we work with are freelancers, though we have some employed staff. So, we wanted to ensure that we had that extra layer of protection, particularly as they all use their own devices.

How did you discover CyberSmart and why did you select it as your solution?

I’m on a COO network with a lot of fast growth tech companies, which has been a fantastic network for me and for a lot of the COOs on it too. That is how we heard about CyberSmart . There was a lot of discussion around GDPR at the time. The guys at CyberSmart came in and did a presentation for us. As is typical in our industry, we are fairly slow to update on tech, but we just really liked the way CyberSmart did things and how they talked about their product. Because we’ve got a fairly unique setup, it was really important for us to up our game on cybersecurity: they were just really good and helpful for us in what otherwise could have been a bit of a painful process.

Which of CyberSmart’s capabilities are most valuable to you and why?

Just that extra layer of security for our remote workforce. Our model was always flexible, but the CyberSmart guys have really enabled us to embed security into this flexibility. When I used to travel on the tube and log in at the stations to check my emails, there was always that worry that I wasn’t secure. Now I know that I’ve got the level of security that I can have, or that I need to have, to protect myself . You hear about hacking, but you don’t really worry about it until something bad happens – now we don’t have to.

When I used to travel on the tube and log in at the stations to check my emails, there was always that worry that I wasn’t secure… You hear about hacking, but you don’t really worry about it until something bad happens – now we don’t have to.

It has helped us up our game. With less tech-savvy people, you’re never sure what is or is not okay. We might think we’re secure and actually not be. CyberSmart has eliminated this ambiguity for us.

I’m working from a MacBook; some people are working from old PCs… everybody’s on different devices, including iPhones. Regardless, the guys at CyberSmart have all our bases covered. We have some IT support now, but we didn’t when we first started this journey and they were there every step of the way to help us implement it. In order to get the Cyber Essentials certification, we had to pass an important questionnaire.

This required us to put in place a fairly complex policy that explained to our people what they had to do or stop doing. For example, they could not log into their devices from a coffee shop without a secure connection. But then we brought in a VPN, which helped to resolve that issue and the team at CyberSmart worked with us to make sure we were doing all the right stuff along the way.

What kind of cost savings or benefit have you found from increased security?

It was important for us to do better with our cybersecurity, so whilst it is an investment, the cost is reasonable for a business of our size and nature. We liked what CyberSmart offered and how they conducted themselves; the fact that they came recommended from another business we knew was also very reassuring.

What advice can you give someone seeking security solutions around remote working?

Give CyberSmart a call! They have been a hugely helpful partner and their customer service is outstanding. We have clients who say: “I need somebody who’s got my back on these things” and that’s when you outsource to the right people for the right price; that’s exactly what these guys have done for us.

Learn more about how to secure your remote workforce using CyberSmart Active Protect.

The General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, was brought in by the European Union in 2018. The intention was to update data protection laws across all member states and ensure that companies would become compliant in their handling of data. A lot of businesses, however, still see GDPR as a nuisance. In fact, it acts to protect customers and businesses alike. Here, we discuss exactly how that is the case.

Security of data

Under GDPR, the data of individuals became much better defined. Anything identifiable to an individual is their personal data, and under GDPR users have the right to know who is in possession of their data and which organisations are using it. Customers have to agree to actions being taken with their data, so they have a far greater level of control over what companies are doing with their personal information. If they don’t like what a company is doing, they can simply withdraw their consent and request that a company deletes the data. This not only protects the customer but also benefits the business in that it ensures individuals can have a greater feeling of comfort that their data is being used legitimately.

Transparency of data

Customers are also given the right to be informed of what the purpose their data is being used for, exactly what data is collected, and if there have been any data security breaches. These wide-ranging reforms, designed to allow for a much greater level of transparency, ensure that customers are not only more secure but are also more aware of what exactly their data entails. When individuals are allowed to download all of the data that international companies hold about them, they have a better idea of what their data actually is, and can get a better idea of what sort of access they want to let companies have. Customers, therefore, are more likely to be trusting of what exactly a company does, since data is no longer an abstract concept but something more tangible. Two-thirds of Europeans have now heard of GDPR, demonstrating the reach of the regulation and its impact in boosting awareness. Compliant companies are therefore likely to benefit from the implementation of GDPR.

With the implementation of GDPR across Europe, companies are now considering data to be an intrinsic part of cyber essentials. Data handling is key to modern business operations, and to ensure that your company is completely compliant, you may need expert help. CyberSmart can help make a complicated bit of regulation, much simpler with our Privacy toolbox, click here to find out more.