“Under the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) rules in Europe and other international regulatory regimes, when a client finds itself victim to a data breach they have to firstly assess the risk to the individuals to determine – not only whether they need to notify the relevant data privacy regulator of the attack – but also whether it is necessary to inform the individuals to whom the data relates,” the firm explained in a statement.

“This requires an understanding of what data has been compromised and what a malicious actor could do with it.”

Leaked data falls into two categories, the firm noted: structured data or unstructured data.

“The conventional approach by many firms faced with a data breach of unstructured data is to engage in a manual review of the content of the documents to identify the type of personal data that has been leaked, and who the data subjects are,” the firm said.

“This can be a long and costly process, especially where large volumes of data are implicated.”

Speaking about the new software, HSF global cyber security practice head Andrew Moir said: “We have been saving our clients costs with this tool.

“Often the need for manual review of the original unstructured data can be significantly reduced, or sometimes even eliminated completely.”

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The launch of the firm’s software follows a call from SmartWomen Connect founder Fiona Craig for in-house legal teams to develop their own technology and practice tools, thereby having greater oversight of what is being created and utilised for day-to-day legal work for respective businesses.