Tag Archive for: property conveyancing

Insecure email communication still causing huge losses through fraud

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Recent news has highlighted once again the risks caused by using insecure email communication to transfer confidential information, as this article shows.

The effect of online theft is clearly devastating for those that have had their money stolen – in many cases these losses represent life savings and cannot be recovered. Criminals posing as conveyancing solicitors, or alternatively hacking into private email accounts and falsifying bank account details so that the conveyancer transfers the proceeds from the sale of a property into a criminal’s account have become much more frequent in recent years.

To allow conveyancers to be confident that they are transferring funds into the correct account, Safe4 are offering the use of their highly secure information transfer service, into which clients or indeed any other party can enter bank details directly into designated fields. This completely eliminates the risks posed by using insecure email communication to transfer this information. It is not only email that is insecure – hard copy post and voice communication also carry risks of their own.

Safe4 are also working with other organisations that have to transfer funds into a client account at the completion of a transaction. These include art galleries, auction houses, and others who may be selling assets on a client’s behalf.

In addition to the storage of all data in UK-only data centres accredited to ISO 27001, Safe4 have just completed another penetration test carried by an independent UK Government accredited agency. Again this has confirmed the high levels of security offered by using Safe4 as the means of transferring confidential information between parties that are involved in high-value transactions. Compliance with the SRA guidelines for cloud computing gives conveyancers additional confidence that information is being transferred between parties with minimum risk.

For more information on how Safe4 can help your organisation to improve the protection of clients’ money, please contact us.

Safe4 Use-Case Paper: Secure Property Conveyancing

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The Safe4 secure information delivery and storage service has been in use by law firms since 2010, but hitherto primarily in support of corporate and commercial property transactions. The introduction of the Safe4 Asset Register in May 2017 has brought new levels of functionality to the system, some of which can be applied to the process of secure property conveyancing.

How can law firms offer their clients better protection of their confidential information?

It is estimated that at least 70% of law firms in the UK use open email systems to transfer confidential information between external parties. This covers a very large number of information types in a variety of departmental activities. Residential property conveyancing, however, is one area where the use of insecure methods of information transfer has been exposed as a primary target for criminal activity.

When a lawyer is engaged by a client to handle the legal aspects associated with selling their home, the final act in the process is for the lawyer to transfer the sale proceeds from their firm’s client account to the client’s bank account. In most cases this is a simple process that is carried out without difficulty, but in recent years there has been an alarming increase in the level of criminal interception of email. It is common for the lawyer to request the client to provide the details of their bank account by email, by telephone, or by filling in a paper form and sending it back to the lawyer. All of these methods of delivery are potentially insecure, but there is mounting evidence that interception of emails and fraudulent alteration of the target bank details has become a major problem.

Impact on Professional Indemnity Insurance premiums

The existence of the problem has been recognised by the providers of professional indemnity insurance for law firms. Premiums are starting to increase steeply for those firms who use the traditional insecure means of obtaining clients’ bank account details.

Secure Property Conveyancing

The Safe4 Asset Register allows this risk to be eliminated. By opening a secure vault for each property transaction, and creating data fields into which basic bank account information – account number, sort code – can be entered directly by the client, the lawyer can offer the client a higher level of protection than has hitherto been possible.

After the client has entered their bank details, the conveyancer will receive an email automatically generated by Safe4 confirming that the information is available. After logging in, the information can then be transferred safely into the internal systems used for handling client payments. There is of course the standard Safe4 audit trail facility associated with all activity, providing a strong evidential record of everything that has been done during the transaction.

If the Safe4 Application Programming Interface (API) is used, the bank account details can be transferred completely automatically into the law firm’s practice management or accounting systems, thus improving security and efficiency further.

UK Hosting

Because all Safe4 data is hosted in the UK in ISO 27001-accredited data centres, the professional practitioner can also take advantage of Solicitors Regulation Authority compliance. All of the activities of Safe4 are conducted under the law of England and Wales.

Safe4 Information Management have partnered with VaultConnect to offer best-in-class security for the systems that handle the transfer of confidential information between the professional practitioner and the client. This collaboration is now benefiting law firms throughout the United Kingdom, who are able to gain the advantage of the security of the Safe4 platform with the expertise and experience of the VaultConnect team.