Today (Dec. 27) along comes news that Hackers affiliated with the Anonymous group said they about to publish emails stolen from Strategic Forecasting, Inc. or Stratfor, a private intelligence analysis firm whose clients include the U.S. military, Wall Street banks and other corporations.  Stratfor disclosed over the weekend that its website had been hacked and that some information about its corporate subscribers had been made public.  Those responsible are promising to release the names of thousands of corporate and government customers, as well as email addresses, passwords and credit card numbers of individual subscribers to its services.

Lawyers who use the “cloud” (or online data storage systems) to store client information would do well to take heed.  While state bar associations and the ABA Commission on Ethics generally deem “cloud” storage of such information acceptable, they all emphasize that lawyers must take reasonable steps to ensure that the process does not compromise client confidentiality.  Lawyers who store in the cloud should take steps to ensure that the system is secure and that client confidentiality will be maintained.  Richard Stockton, cochair of an ABA Technology for the Litigator Committee, advises lawyers to investigate whether firewalls are used and to determine whether it is necessary to encrypt information when sending data to the cloud.  They should also understand what would happen to stored data if the vendor goes out of business.

Have a hack-free and bountiful 2012!