Nextpoint Lab

Ensuring confidential/secure data remains confidential and secure is vital at every stage of litigation.  Nowhere are you at more risk than when data is literally in someone’s hands… their laptop.  We’ve posted before about how encrypting data on your laptop makes it harder to steal, but not impossible. Even strategies that are “unbeatable” today are probably just waiting for someone with the proper motivation to take them down.

I was reminded of this again today while reading “Laying Someone Off? Better Check That Laptop”, from The National Law Journal. When people get fired they get frustrated; and when they get frustrated they may do some things they normally wouldn’t do. If that something involves taking (or harming) electronic data — a lot of damage can be done; and fast.

This has been a problem for a long time. Occasionally, security will “walk someone out” to avoid a physical conflict but more often they’re making sure someone’s last hour of work isn’t spent downloading files and loading their briefcase. But what about when someone gets wind of the impending cuts a little early – or they happen to have forgotten their laptop at home that fateful day?

I’m not naive enough to think that your work laptop will have literally zero confidential data on it, but using a SaaS solution for your case management tool can certainly go a long way. You have literally millions of pages of evidence for your case — while no one has downloaded all of that (which is another reason why you are better served not depending on a laptop as your storage location, but I digress) … they might start looking for some key docs when they get the bad news. We can cut that access off in literally one second.

Piling on, Rocket Matter posted another great point about depending on your laptop as a data storage location today, Minimizing Downtime. If you’re without that machine for a few days: what does that cost you? … and that’s assuming you’ve been religiously backing it up.  Have you?