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Philadelphia Law Firm Hosts Breakfast To Beat Computer Criminals

By KYW tech editor Ian Bush

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- A free breakfast seminar this week in Philadelphia is designed to help businesses defend information -- theirs and yours -- from computer criminals.

The burden on businesses is growing: by far, more data breaches were discovered in 2015 than in the previous year, according to a study by PricewaterhouseCoopers. So, how can you keep customers' information and your intellectual property safe, and what to do after an attack?

"Cyber liability is a real threat to businesses, both financially and from a reputational standpoint," says data security expert Ted Schaer, a shareholder at the Philadelphia law firm Zarwin Baum. "Whether you're a small corner store, a chiropractor with a couple hundred patients, or a Fortune 500 company, if you have and store information regarding your customers, clients, patients, that's a valuable asset that cybercriminals want and will do what they need to do to get at it."

Zarwin Baum is hosting a free breakfast seminar on Tuesday, Feb. 23 with answers on how to defend against and respond to breaches. Among the speakers: infosec attorneys, a cyberinsurance agent, and a former CIA operative who specializes in social engineering.

Social engineering is a path of lesser resistance into a computer network. An attacker, sounding trustworthy, tricks an employee into handing over his user ID and password, and boom -- they're inside. A study released this past week by the security technology provider Balabit found more than 70 percent of companies deemed the "insider threat" riskier than "hackers" breaking into their networks.

"What we're hoping in this seminar is to provide people some framework to understand how they can make themselves more secure and limit the potential damages to their businesses, clients, and customers," Schaer says.

Register for the breakfast here.

 

 

 

 

 

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