Technology

The best advice for avoiding wire fraud in a real estate transaction is SIMPLE.  Seller Identity Must Precede Literally Everything. That’s the headline of a new risk management brochure from Investors Title Insurance Company. “When we are small children, we are warned about talking to strang… Read More +

"We have only bits and pieces of information, but what we know for certain is that at some point in the early 21st Century all of mankind was united in celebration. We marveled at our own magnificence as we gave birth...to AI.”1  These lines, spoken by heroic Captain Morpheus in the 1999 movie The Matrix, tell the story of [spoiler alert, though it’s arguable that no such warning is needed when talking about a 24-year old movie because, well, if you haven’t seen it by now you probably aren’t planning on seeing it anyway] the war between humans and artificial intelligence driven machines. Read More +

News of the MOVEit data breach – which resulted in the exposure of personal data on millions of people – set off alarm bells in law offices from Wilmington, NC to Walla Walla, WA. The hackers took advantage of an alleged flaw in the popular software program MOVEit. The file-transfer program is used… Read More +

Just when you thought your law practice was cyber-safe, along comes a slew of new online scams involving typosquatting and combosquatting. Typosquatting, also called URL hijacking, relies on user mistakes – such as making a simple typographical error when entering a URL into an internet browser – t… Read More +

You probably don’t leap from bed every morning thinking about data governance. But if you don’t have a grasp of the basic principles of data governance, you’re putting your practice at risk. “Data governance is a subset of information governance,” writes legal tech expert Hans Wi… Read More +

Lots of things can go wrong on a Zoom call, and the most serious mishaps are usually self-inflicted. A case in point comes from Chicago, where an unmuted attorney uttered profanity and a racist slur while waiting for her client to appear on a Zoom call. The judge and others on the call heard the comments. The… Read More +

Here’s a risk management reminder: careless handling of a privileged communication can jeopardize its privileged status. This can include inadvertently showing, sharing or sending it to someone else by way of email. A cautionary tale is the California case of Fourth Dimension Software v. Der Touristik D… Read More +

We all know that hitting the “Reply all” button in an email can sometimes have embarrassing consequences. It might also imply consent – even if that’s not what you intend, according to a recent ABA ethics opinion. “Lawyers who copy their clients on emails and other forms of elect… Read More +

This year, ransomware attacks have seen a nearly 13 percent increase. That’s as big a jump as the last five years combined. In these attacks, cybercriminals have usually taken one of the following routes to gain access to the data in your computer system: Credentials, Phishing, Exploiting vulnerabiliti… Read More +

If you receive an email from a “Jacqui Salmon” purporting to be from the NC State Bar that requests information from you, delete it immediately. There is no such employee at the State Bar, and you’re being phished. On June 7, the State Bar placed the following warning on its website: We a… Read More +

Your worst nightmare has become reality: you discover your law firm database has been breached and sensitive information has been compromised. What’s the first thing you should do? If you had the foresight to prepare an Incident Response Plan – even if it’s just a single page of action ite… Read More +

Does your law firm have a Cybersecurity Incident Response Plan? If not, how will you know what to do – and who to call – in the event of a cyber attack? “If you have no IRP, you are asking for a catastrophe – and one likely to make the headlines,” according to this post at Abov… Read More +

If you’re thinking of signing up for an online advertising service where you pay to get client leads, better read this proposed NC Bar opinion before you do. Under Proposed 2021 Formal Ethics Opinion 5, lawyers can’t ethically participate in a pay-per-lead program if the vendor records communicat… Read More +

The NC State Bar Grievance Committee has warned lawyers to expect “serious professional discipline” if they fail to take adequate protection against wire fraud scams. The warning appears in the Fall 2021 issue of the State Bar Journal and on the bar’s website. The full text of the “He… Read More +

Wire Fraud losses continue to plague real estate transactions, resulting in millions of dollars of losses around the country. The most common scenario is the buyer receiving altered wiring instructions. The State Bar is now holding the closing attorney accountable for this loss even though the closing attorney … Read More +