Personal email systems still being used to carry confidential information

It is no major surprise to learn that a major email service provider has been hacked – again – and that millions of people have had their personal information exposed to criminals. This is highlighted in an interesting article in The Times, published today.

What is still very unfortunate, however, is that a large number of professional practitioners in the UK are still failing to acknowledge that email is the leading source of computer crime and online fraud. Time and again personal financial information is being passed between lawyers and their clients, in residential property transactions for example, using the client’s personal email account. Repeated examples of these emails being hacked and bank account details being changed have not deterred some high-profile UK law firms from continuing this practice, irrespective of severe financial losses being experienced by their clients.

Also worrying is that it is common practice in some firms for lawyers and others to send confidential documents to their own private email accounts so that they can be worked on outside business hours or away from the office.

The Safe4 service was launched in 2010 to offer a highly secure alternative to email, not just for document transfer, but also for medium-term or permanent management of information. Based on UK-only storage in data centres that are accredited to the ISO 27001 international security standard, Safe4 offer a service that complies with the Solicitors Regulation Authority guidance on the use of cloud computing. Accessible at any time, from anywhere, it eliminates the need to trust confidential information to high-risk systems.

For more information on how Safe4 can assist your firm to minimise the risk of information loss or interception, please contact us.