Careers

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

Experience

Innovation

Interactive Maps

Locations

About

Pages

Meet our team of innovators
Ask us how we do it

Professionals

Insights

Services

Thompson Hine LLP, a full-service business law firm with approximately 400 lawyers in 11 offices, was ranked number 1 in the category “Most innovative North American law firms: New working models” by The Financial Times and was 1 of 7 firms shortlisted for The American Lawyer’s inaugural Legal Services Innovation Award. The firm has been recognized by the National Law Journal as a Legal Technology Trailblazer and featured by Bloomberg for its innovative service delivery models, which drive accuracy and predictability. The firm’s commitment to innovation is embodied in Thompson Hine SmartPaTHTM – a smarter way to work – predictable, efficient and aligned with client goals. For more information, please visit ThompsonHine.com and ThompsonHine.com/SmartPaTH.

Home | Thompson Hine LLP

Atlanta

Chicago

Cincinnati

Cleveland

Columbus

Dayton

Los Angeles

Minneapolis

New York

Silicon Valley

Washington, D.C.

<a href="https://www.thelawforlawyerstoday.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/754/2016/06/Ransom.jpg"><img style="max-width: 100%;height: auto;max-width: 100%;height: auto" loading="lazy" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-2658" src="https://www.thelawforlawyerstoday.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/754/2016/06/Ransom-300x200.jpg" alt="Held to ransom" width="300" height="200"></a>A <a href="http://filehost.thompsonhine.com/uploads/MISAC_June_16,_2016_Cyber_Alert_42a2.pdf">cyber-alert issued earlier this month </a>by the non-profit <a href="https://www.cisecurity.org/about/">Center for Internet Security </a>warns of a dangerous wave of malicious e-mails that are specifically targeting lawyers.&nbsp; The fake e-mails are calculated to get your adrenaline pumping and to&nbsp;get you to open them and click on a link &mdash; because they&rsquo;re personalized, they look urgent, and they&rsquo;re disguised as coming&nbsp;from your own state&rsquo;s disciplinary body or bar association.
Don&rsquo;t fall for these e-mails
The CIS, through its <a href="https://msisac.cisecurity.org/">Multistate Information Sharing and Analysis Center</a>, reports that the subject and body of these phishing or spoofing e-mails look like they are from your board of bar examiners, bar association, or disciplinary counsel.&nbsp; In the subject line and/or body, they claim that a disciplinary complaint has been filed against you, or that your bar membership has lapsed.&nbsp; You are asked to respond by clicking&nbsp;on a link &mdash; which, according to the CIS, &ldquo;leads to a malicious download, potentially <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ransomware">ransomware</a>.&rdquo;
We tweeted out the warning when it came in from Minnesota, but other states where lawyers&nbsp;have been targeted, according to the CIS,&nbsp;also include AL, CA, FL, GA and NV.
<a href="https://www.thelawforlawyerstoday.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/754/2016/06/Tweet2.jpg"><img style="max-width: 100%;height: auto;max-width: 100%;height: auto" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-2656" src="https://www.thelawforlawyerstoday.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/754/2016/06/Tweet2-300x201.jpg" alt="Tweet2" width="300" height="201"></a>
Well-written, well-disguised
The CIS says that unlike the obvious Nigerian-lottery-type e-mails we know to avoid, this latest wave consists of e-mails that are &ldquo;well-written and appear to originate from the appropriate authority,&rdquo; and they are personalized, too, which of course boosts their effectiveness.
As a member of my local certified grievance&nbsp;committee, I know the procedure my home state of Ohio uses to notify lawyers of grievances &mdash; and it does not include e-mail.&nbsp; I doubt that your jurisdiction&rsquo;s process does either.
Your full name, bar membership status, bar number, office&nbsp;address and other professional details are publicly available, usually through your supreme court&rsquo;s web listing of enrolled lawyers.&nbsp; So it is easy for the bad guys to find you, and relatively easy to match you up with an e-mail address.&nbsp; If&nbsp; <a href="https://www.thelawforlawyerstoday.com/2016/02/avvo-misappropriated-identity-for-commercial-use-says-iawyer-in-class-action/">Avvo can do it</a>, why not criminals?
Ways to be savvy
CIS recommends several steps in response to this latest threat:
<ul>
<li>Know how to identify spear-phishing e-mails.&nbsp; &ldquo;This particular series of emails includes what appears to be a link to the state bar association, but when the user hovers over the link it shows that the link is really to a different website.&nbsp; Copying and pasting the link, instead of clicking on it, would defeat this social engineering attempt.&ldquo;</li>
<li>Back up all your systems regularly &ldquo;to limit the impact of data loss from ransomware infections.&nbsp; Backups should be stored offline.&rdquo;</li>
<li>CIS is a &sect; 501(c)(3) non-profit; check out its additional recommendations for protecting against and responding to phishing campaigns, available <a href="https://msisac.cisecurity.org/whitepaper/documents/MS-ISAC%20Security%20Primer%20-%20Phishing%5b2%5d.pdf">here </a>and <a href="https://msisac.cisecurity.org/whitepaper/documents/CIS%20Primer%20-%20Ransomware.pdf">here</a>.</li>
<li>Report any suspicious e-mails to the&nbsp;FBI&rsquo;s Internet Crime Complaint Center (<a href="https://www.ic3.gov/default.aspx">www.ic3.gov</a>) as well as to the legal organization that is spoofed in the e-mail.</li>
</ul>
And a duty to be savvy
As <a href="https://www.thelawforlawyerstoday.com/2015/05/duty-of-competence-includes-reasonable-diligence-in-not-falling-for-internet-scams-new-opinion-holds/">we&rsquo;ve noted before</a>, not only is it obviously in your own interest to avoid scams that would lock up your own computer data &mdash; it can also be part of your ethical duty of competence to your clients.&nbsp; <a href="https://www.thelawforlawyerstoday.com/2015/08/legal-departments-among-most-likely-to-fall-for-phishing-says-report/">Law departments have been identified </a>as particularly susceptible to falling for scam e-mails.
Our complete dependence on our computers makes them a point of vulnerability &mdash; take the steps necessary to avoid being exploited.

core/freeform

Ethics

Legal Ethics, Professional Responsibility and the Business of Law

Beware:  malicious e-mail campaign is targeting lawyers with fake disciplinary,  bar notifications