Criminals are intercepting emails between solicitor and client. Due to many legal firms communicating insecurely with their clients, clients are at increased fraudulent risk. This does not have to be the case.
Recently a homebuyer had £330,000 stolen because their email communications with their solicitor were being intercepted and another £299,000 and these are not the only occurrences of such fraudulent activity (losses have exceeded £1.2 million).
Many solicitors are not ensuring that their communications with their clients are secure and this should not be condoned especially when very private personal details (often involving large sums of money and bank details) are communicated via email between the two parties.
Legal firms are at great risk of having their email systems breached and information altered for malicious reasons. The many cases are proof that this is a serious problem and action should be taken.
Proper security measures must be enforced to protect the firm and more importantly their clients. Encrypted communications between solicitor and client is essential to ensure safe and private communications and to alleviate the risk of this type of fraudulent activity.
Telegraph:
