Lawyers lead ‘war game’ drills to prepare clients for cyber attacks

Lawyer James North regularly stages “war game” simulation exercises with clients to test how they would deal with a cyber attack. In the past year, he has gone from doing these exercises typically once a month to almost weekly.

North, who is head of technology, media and telecoms at Australian law firm Corrs Chambers Westgarth, says cyber security has now become a top priority for many companies along with environmental, social and governance matters. “There have been a lot of really significant attacks recently,” he warns. “Preparedness is patchy across the economy.”

Cyber attacks are also growing in complexity. An annual report from the Australian Cyber Security Centre, a government agency, said in November that the country was being exposed to increasingly sophisticated threats and it had received more than 76,000 reports of cyber crime between June 2021 and July…