Delivering Value Through Endpoint Cybersecurity: a ClariLegal Series Interview with Raffaele Mautone

March 20, 2023

A ClariLegal interview with Raffaele Mautone

By Cash Butler and Jeff Kruse.

Raffaele Mautone is excited to help small and midsized law firms save time and money while operating securely. With over 25 years of experience in the cybersecurity industry, Raffaele knows how to deliver value in a crowded market space.

Underserved Market – Small and Midsized Law Firms

After working at tech giants like Dell and McAfee and helping grow startups, FireEye and Duo, Raffaele recognized that small and midsized law firms were not taking the necessary precautions to protect against cybersecurity attacks. Hackers were more successful in attacking smaller law firms with ransomware. But historically, the available security software focused on the large enterprise market and to a lesser extent, consumers.

Unfortunately companies have been slower to develop world-class all-in-one cybersecurity solutions. For those that have been marketed, they are largely unaffordable for small and midsized businesses. As a result, smaller companies, including smaller law firms, have not invested in cybersecurity solutions and have not been adequately protected from attacks. The Aadya Security solution named “Judy” fills this necessary and often overlooked need.

A Different Approach

From Raffaele’s perspective, the marketing for cybersecurity solutions missed the mark. Cybersecurity companies routinely used the same threatening approach in their marketing to potential customers. Those companies threatened customers with certain doom and gloom -- using dark menacing images and ominous messages. As an industry veteran, Raffaele noticed that those messages were not resonating with small businesses, including small and midsized law firms.

When he started his latest company, AaDya Security, in March 2019, Raffaele took a different approach. Instead of using threatening messages to coerce businesses to invest in cybersecurity protection, Raffaele and his team created Judy, a friendly persona to convey positive messages about the benefits of AaDya Security’s cybersecurity solution for small and midsized businesses, including small and midsized law firms.

Raffaele explains that “we wanted our solution to be approachable. We wanted Judy to be part of the team, so when customers talk about Judy, they talk about her as a persona, like ‘Hey, Judy, found this on my computer.’.”

How Judy Provides Cybersecurity Solutions for Smaller Companies?

Raffaele also recognized that smaller businesses could not afford to implement and support multiple technologies to protect themselves. Most security software solutions focused on only one or two aspects needed for complete business protection. But many smaller companies lacked IT employees or had teams that were too small to maintain multiple cybersecurity tools.

Raffaele’s team at AaDya Security designed Judy to deliver value for smaller businesses as an all-in-one affordable cybersecurity cloud-based solution. They developed Judy to provide:

1. Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR),

2. Password Management and Passwordless Login,

3. Security Awareness Training,

4. Managed Threat Detection & Automated Remediation,

5. Secure Authentication,

6. Automated Compliance Management and Reporting, and

7. Domain Name System (DNS) Filtering

Raffaele also wanted Judy to be easy to use and install for small businesses because he knew small business owners, and lawyers, do not have time to work on cybersecurity risks. So, Judy is a browser extension that can be installed remotely and runs in the background on any installed device. Additionally, Aadya Security’s team remotely runs and manages the security infrastructure.

Delivering Value for Small Businesses

Top-notch information security and cyber security can be additive to the business to meet and exceed the security requirements of end customers. But Raffaele recognized that the direct cost of purchasing and the cost of time and resources to implement and manage were the main barriers for smaller businesses to invest in cybersecurity tools. To provide affordable solutions for smaller companies, AaDya Security has a simple three-tier monthly fee pricing model. The monthly fee per user covers unlimited devices per user.

Judy also delivers value through ease of installation, maintenance, and use. Raffaele tells the story of the law firm partner who initially resisted implementing Judy because he was concerned about the billable time he would lose going through the implementation process. That partner was surprised and delighted when informed that Judy had been installed behind the scenes.

Benefits of Endpoint Cybersecurity Apply to Businesses Beyond Law Firms

Small and midsized law firms have made headlines because hackers targeted them due to the vulnerabilities of smaller firms. The advantages of an inclusive cybersecurity solution for law firms are undeniable.

Those benefits also apply to other vendors in the legal ecosystem, like mediators and dispute-resolution professionals. In almost every mediation or arbitration, the parties share private information, including personal financial records, medical records, internal business data, agreements, and similar documents. The parties expect the neutrals to protect that confidential information. To safeguard that information, we use tools like secure portals, encrypted files, cloud-based storage, firewalls, and data backups. Still, we have all seen articles about hackers locking law firms, schools, hospitals, and small businesses out of their systems and threatening to release private information. We have also seen recent data that 60% of small businesses that experienced breaches went out of business within six months after the breach.

For dispute resolution professionals, Judy provides additional protections to keep the parties’ information confidential. Judy protects against phishing attacks, operates in the background to detect spyware, malware, and ransomware, and manages passwords. Any one of those would help protect confidential information, but Judy does them all.

In addition to the data protection advantages, Judy also opens doors typically closed to solo and small law firms, vendors, and consultants. For several years, large companies have required potential vendors, including law firms and consultants, to complete cybersecurity risk questionnaires as part of the request for proposal process. Companies have required potential vendors to provide details about the cybersecurity measures the vendors have taken. Simply attesting to having McAfee or Windows Security on their computers is not enough to pass vendor risk management assessments. Potential vendors need to show they have additional security.

Judy solves that problem for small businesses. Judy helps small businesses meet vendor risk management security requirements and provides valuable audit trails. So, those solo and small providers can pass the cyber security thresholds to compete with the large vendors.

Conclusion

Raffaele stated during the interview that his team “is excited in the morning to help small and medium-sized law businesses.” You can sense that excitement when talking to him for just a few minutes. He explained, “we built Judy to help law firms and other businesses have excellent cyber protection. Business is challenging enough as it is. Removing cyber risk as one of those challenges and making it a strength provides extraordinary value to companies.” ­

Go to www.aadyaSecurity.com and inquiry@aadyaecurity.com to learn more about Judy and AaDya Security. Use code R3JK and mention Legal Business World to get a 10% discount.

Disclaimer: The statements of the interviewees in the Value Article Series are opinions and observations of a personal nature and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and policies of their respective employers.

About the Authors

Jeff Kruse (l) is the Founder of Key Legal Operations Consulting LLC, where he consults with legal departments and law firms to help them operate more efficiently through process improvements, technology implementation, and outsourced legal operations management to help them improve their bottom lines. https://keylegalops.com/

Cash Butler (r) is the CEO of R3 - Legal Operations Consulting and the founder of ClariLegal. Cash has over 20 years of experience in the financial services and legal vertical markets. He is a seasoned legal technology innovator and digital transformation champion.

He focuses on helping organizations by improving legal operations, eDiscovery, litigation & compliance. Cash is an expert in operations, legal vendor, pricing, and project management.

Link to the article on LegalBusinessWorld.com: https://bit.ly/42B9OVN