What can ACP do for your company?
As cybercriminals threaten more and more companies in recent years, the world of cybersecurity has had a new layer added to it; Law.
In this new series of blog posts, I’ll be talking about this unique aspect of cybersecurity and how consulting with an attorney who specializes in cyber risk management can significantly strengthen your position in the legal matters.
First, I have to explain what attorney-client privilege is, as it is the primary motivator behind having an attorney for your cyber risks. Attorney-client privilege (ACP) is something you may see in movies or on TV a lot, but it has actual ramifications that can help you and your company if any threats do affect you.
ACP protects information that you share with your attorney from being brought as evidence to a court case and exists to promote trust between an attorney and their clients. If anything you said to your attorney could be brought as evidence, then you would never want to say anything to your attorney, would you?
With ACP, you can tell your attorney anything you want to about your situation without consequences by claiming attorney-client privilege in a court case. This is similar to other provisions in the American legal system, such as spousal privilege, doctor-patient privilege, and the fifth amendment.
As I mentioned before, ACP it pivotal to your legal defense if cybercriminals attack your company. When you start assessing your company’s unique cyber risks with an attorney, the plan to manage those risks then becomes protected by ACP and gives you the upper hand in lawsuits during the aftermath of a cyber-attack, whether the lawsuit is from customers, employees, or government organizations such as the FTC.
I will go into this topic in further detail in the next installment of this blog post series on ACP, where I’ll talk about how you can have the protection of ACP. It will be another aspect of ACP called the attorney-work product doctrine (AWP), which is just another part of the legal process you must know about to protect your company.