It’s finally happened, I’ve won the lottery!!! I just need to click on the link in the email to enter my bank account details…. But when I look carefully, I can see some grammatical and spelling errors like “You area Winer!”. The email address is also a bunch of numbers, not exactly giving me faith it’s actually from NSW Lotteries. You guessed it, unfortunately it’s a scam.
Cybersecurity is something we all need to be very aware of. While my example is an obvious one, sometimes it is not quite so clear. That text message from the ATO providing a link to your return can look real when you are a little distracted. That email from the phone company with the link to click on to access your bill can have the right logo and look really similar to the other emails you have received from them. Even big businesses with all the cybersecurity money can buy at their fingertips can be compromised by scammers.
Email hacking is one of the most common scams that has impacted law firms and conveyancers in particular. There have been reports of cases where scammers have hacked into a firm’s email account and intercepted emails sending invoices to change the firm bank details to their scam account. Or cases where hackers have impersonated the law firm indicating a change in trust account details and requesting a client pay the deposit for their property purchase into a new trust account. The emails looked like they came directly from the law firm/conveyancer and contained all the right wording/logos but were intercepted by hackers and bank details changed without the firms knowledge before it reached the client’s inbox.
Thankfully advances in technology have assisted law firm owners such as myself to utilise options other than email to convey important information. Most firms now use secure document sharing programs or internal file portals to share sensitive documents with clients rather than email. There are online document signing programs for when contracts need to be signed electronically and online verification of identity programs. Law firms and conveyancers using programs like PEXA for conveyancing are able to use that technology to send bank details securely using multi-factor identification. Accounting programs now often send e-invoices rather than invoices as attachments to emails. All of this can help, but you need to protect yourself as well.
If you receive an email from your solicitor that requests bank details or indicates that their own account details have changed, it is easy to make a simple phone call to confirm if that email is legitimate. Do not accept that the contact number provided in the email is correct, verify it using another source such as a business card or look it up on the firm website. I can assure you, given how difficult it is to open a trust account, I will not be changing my firm’s trust account details anytime soon! KC Hilton, WNB Legal