(Reuters) - Threats to the confidentiality of attorney-client communications from increased government surveillance, data breaches and hacking of digital communications require a "new generation of ethics rules," according to a New York Civil Liberties Union report released Tuesday.

The COVID-19 pandemic and increased use of technology for legal work has highlighted the need to bolster security for digital communications, the report found. Lawyers should be required to use end-to-end encryption for privileged communications and should seek out open source platforms, according to the NYCLU.

"The COVID-19 crisis has exposed this digital security gap in an alarming way, and the increasing use of digital communications for client matters necessitates permanent changes to legal ethics rules," Jonathan Stribling-Uss, author of the report and a technologist fellow at the NYCLU, said in a statement.

Law firms and the broader legal industry have faced mounting data breaches, ransomware attacks and other cybersecurity threats in recent years, but the report warned that the profession has yet to adapt.

"Rules that govern the practice of law must recognize and account for ways in which digital risks are impacting the profession – to ensure a legal system that is just, secure, and effective," the report said.

Rules governing other professions recognize the need for safeguards for work with clients, and "the bar must follow suit," the authors wrote.

While the report focuses on New York, many of its recommendations and findings apply to the legal industry broadly.

End-to-end encryption allows only the communicating individuals to read messages. While these technological tools are "inexpensive, usable and ubiquitous," they won't be effective unless attorneys and organizations employ them, the report said.

To that end, attorneys must change ethics standards to require end-to-end encryption for privileged communications, and the American Bar Association, state bar associations, and others should adopt regulatory standards that enforce the use of the technology, the report recommended. Attorneys and clients also should advocate for federal regulation or legislation to incorporate encryption standards, it said.

Lawyers must be aware that information used in criminal proceedings "is often gathered illegally," according to the report. Therefore, "zealous representation in any criminal case should include an attorney's efforts to sniff out unlawful or warrantless surveillance that might have served as a source for evidence collected against a client."

Among other suggestions, the group also urged attorneys and associations to encourage the use of open source operating systems for attorney-client drafting to ensure there are no "secret, government-prompted flaws" that risk revealing sensitive information.