You will recall comments on the new cyber insurance conditions sent by email in July 2022, and our follow up note in the July LIANSwers (https://www.lians.ca/news/lianswers/email-security-and-mandatory-cyber-insurance-coverage-part-2) that discussed the importance of making sure your computer and email met certain standards and that your email has multi factor authentication enabled. An enabling MFA issue specifically came to light when we were made aware that some email providers do not offer this feature.
We would also like to mention a further potential area of concern, that being the use of personal email addresses for communication with clients, opposing parties and / or LIANS. For various reasons, e.g., lawyer on leave or does not want to use the firm email address for some reason or working from home, we sometimes find ourselves communicating through a personal email address. If that personal email address is used for any business purpose, be it from LIANS, a client or an opposing party, it should have the same security features as your work email. Your home computer, if you use it to access that account, or your work account, should have the same controls as your work computer. No one should be able to log in to the email account but you, and it should have multi factor authentication and email scanning enabled. If you use a home computer to access email or do any work for that matter, that computer should have current anti-virus and anti-spyware software and firewalls installed.
LIANSwers v78, November 2022