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In this episode of CHATTINN CYBER, Marc Schein interviews Vickram Kooblall, CIO and CISO at Scahill Law Group. Vickram is in charge of managing the firm’s operations and directing its technology infrastructure. He investigates and analyzes the firm’s digital transformation and cybersecurity resilience initiatives.
Vickram tells us about his upbringing and what led him to a career in cybersecurity. He reveals that the internet was never designed with security in mind, but as it grew, we realized how important it is to manage, secure, and protect data.
Vickram also describes how artificial intelligence has become the digital transformation means of law firms and many other organizations. AI and ML have greatly aided attorneys in many areas, including contract management, document management, due diligence, legal research, behavioral prediction, and so on, allowing them to become better litigators. According to Vickram, law firms deal with sensitive data daily, so data security is critical. He also shared some basic hygiene tips, like, using a strong password and multi-factor authentication.
Internal and external threats are treated equally by law firms. Internal threats are prevented/curbed with utmost employee care, especially during times like the great resignation or big quit, because data is the most important threat then. To ensure data security, many organizations today use zero trust. Encryption is also critical.
Towards the close of the episode, Vikram emphasizes the importance of focusing on AI security because of the numerous native adversarial attacks specific to AI. So, it is important that organizations using data and developing an AI model must also ensure its security.
Listen to the conversation for more details!
Highlights:
“Well, certainly in terms of zero trust is becoming, you know, one of those big, you know, big things that we’re seeing organizations do more and more, we are certainly seeing user rights and access management, being something that is looked at very closely and monitored, you know, who should have access to what and when. Also, I think the timing is very important when you’re working on a large case or a particular matter. Those individuals that don’t need access should not have access to those specific cases. During that time. And, you know, it’s going to come back to encryption.”
“You know, in terms of some basic hygiene, one of the biggest things it comes back to is also employee training. That has been one of my focuses, you know, in the last two years ensuring that the employees themselves are very well versed and understand threats that come their way. You know, in terms of strong passwords, that’s been some of the basic hygiene that every organization should implement, and more so many law firms. I have seen at least, maybe once or twice during a week of some law firm email being compromised due to exactly that not having a strong password, we have multi-factor authentication, which is certainly a must-have for any organization, especially, you know, law firms in this space..”
“I think, AI has become the digital transformation that we’ve been looking for. Look, law firms are very slow in adopting new technology and trying to, you know, get a, you know, trying to, it’s always been such a labor-intensive type of practice.”
Time-Stamps:
[00:29] – How Vickram became executive director of the most prestigious law firm in the Northeast
[03:38] – Why is Artificial Intelligence important for law firms?
[05:38] – The best practices in law firms to secure data
[07:12] – Is Vickram concerned more about internal threats or external threats?
[08:49] – How to mitigate some of the internal threats inside an organization?
[10:15] – How is AI security important?
Connect with Vickram:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vickramk/