Urgent fraud alert following unprecedented levels of scam activity - 7 October 2015
Fraud attempts against law firms are at unprecedented level.
We would urge all firms to review our recent fraud alerts and make sure that all relevant personnel and clients are aware of them.
Bogus bank calls & emails
Please revisit previous fraud alerts on the following fraud methods:
- Bogus calls from banks
- Bogus emails purporting to be from senior people within the firm – attempting to instruct fraudulent accounts transfers
- Bogus firm emails being sent to genuine clients of the firm advising them that the firm has a new bank account and instructing them to send payments to that accounts which is controlled by the fraudster
Malware
In addition, there is currently a heightened risk of malware attacks against firm systems to enable the processing of fraudulent payments from client and firm accounts.
Please review our alert of March 2014, “Cyber fraud and scam emails”, for sources of guidance on how firms can protect themselves against these risks. Your IT supplier should also be able to assist.
Please ensure that all staff are aware of the risks posed by suspicious emails and do not click on any links on such emails as this may infect your systems with malware.
Invoice redirection fraud
The Royal Bank of Scotland has also reported seeing an increase in fraud against the legal sector, specifically highlighting the risk of invoice redirection fraud.
In this fraud, the firm will be contacted by a fraudster pretending to be a genuine supplier or client and will request that the bank account details held for that suppler or client are to be changed. If this change is made, payments intended for the genuine supplier or client will be redirected to an account controlled by the fraudster.
The Royal Bank of Scotland has provided an information sheet which contains advice on how to prevent the fraud.
Cybersecurity funding for your business
If you are interested in improving the cybersecurity of your company then you can apply for up to £5,000 of government funding, through Innovate UK, which is only available until the 20th of October 2015.
If your business has under 250 employees and has a turnover of less that £50 million then you are eligible to apply for funding.
Fraud and scam alerts
We regularly issue alerts to members and the public in response to threats to the profession. We also raise awareness of any potential scams involving fake solicitors or firms.