Data Privacy Laws Effective Jan 1, 2012 Require Use of Email Encryption
Business and Law Firm Security Falling Under Regulatory Microscope
Market query: How to send secure email?

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- In response to revised data privacy laws in California and Illinois, online privacy firm Lawdex Corp announced the release this week of secure email solution SDX 6.0. Adopted by law firms in 47 states as well as those in 36 countries abroad, Lawdex is addressing fresh concerns among state lawmakers in California, Illinois, Massachusetts, and Nevada over unsecured methods businesses use to send email.

Following a year of high-profile data breaches, the new state data privacy laws are driving use of secure email encryption by business. Law firms, healthcare providers, and financial services firms appear especially impacted by the new legal provisions put into effect January first.

California’s 2012 data privacy rules require businesses to submit a detailed notice of security breaches to the California Attorney General’s Office in addition to notifying all effected clients. The requirements highlight the unique risks involved in law-firm data breaches, including impacts to discovery in ongoing litigation and the jeopardizing of client privilege.

Use of standard email to transmit personal client information has increasingly come under fire by security analysts, data experts, lawmakers, and the courts, resulting in key changes to the law in bell weather states such as California. In addition to massive data breaches in 2011 among global giants such as Sony, RSA, and Epsilon, loss of intellectual property among the Fortune Global 2000 has proven by industry analysts to be significant and widespread.

The new data privacy laws in California and Illinois also offer protections from state and civil penalties under safe harbor provisions for those firms that encrypt their data (California Data Privacy Law 1798.80-84 / Illinois Data Privacy Law HB3025).

How to send Secure Email? According to Lawdex CEO Scott Stanley, “We recognize that 80% of law firms use Outlook email. Our Outlook plug-in simplifies an email encryption process to function inside of Outlook. If you can use Outlook email you can use our secure email solution in any office configuration.”

What is encryption? According to Lawdex CTO, Brent Pearson, “SDX 6.0 is SSL 128 bit encrypted, meaning that a brute-force attack would take 149,745,258,842,898 years to succeed. But we have additional provisions for man-in-the-middle, DoS, and phishing attacks. Every time a document is opened it’s time stamped. So there’s a real-time client record for their internal review.”

About Lawdex: Lawdex hosts its SDX 6.0 secure email solution for use by the global legal and business community. Lawdex also provides secure online legal services and ready tools to initiate court filing and service of process online. For additional information visit www.lawdex.com.

CONTACT:

Lawdex Corp
Scott Stanley, 800-422-7255

KEYWORDS:   United States  North America  California  Illinois

INDUSTRY KEYWORDS:   Technology  Data Management  Internet  Networks  Other Technology  Security  Professional Services  Insurance  Legal  Other Professional Services

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