Martin Clark of the IT consultancy ITWiser says that hackers often focus on small organisations where they suspect that barriers to entry will be weaker. He said: 'This makes law firms and professional services organisations particularly at risk and we’ve seen several cases in recent months where hackers have entered systems and accessed a huge range of sensitive and personal data.  The majority of these types of firms have very little security in place and in many cases, it’s the equivalent of leaving the office door wide open at night.'

Identifying external devices

The lack of protection leaves the firms vulnerable to disgruntled employers as well as to hackers and other outsiders, says ITWiser. Mr Clark says that some basic protections can be introduced without spending large sums. These would make sure that all networks monitor employee and other activity by using 'software to log behaviour and identify external devices that connect to it'. Source: B Daily