Customer Warning - Cyber Fraud

What is cyber fraud?

Fraud is when deceit or trickery is used to gain a dishonest advantage, which is often financial, over another person. Cyber crime is any criminal act dealing with computers and networks (called hacking).

Cyber Fraud is a real threat to everyone as well businesses of all sizes.

Brethertons takes the prevention of Cyber Fraud very seriously. We have robust Cybersecurity measures in place and have completed the thorough requirements to obtain the Cyber Essentials Plus accreditation to minimise the risk of cyber fraud. We, however, need your help for the process to remain robust.

What can you do?

There are unscrupulous criminals out there who will try their utmost to defraud you given the opportunity. Some scams are quite sophisticated and can involve emails or telephone contact purporting to be from us and even using our branding. It is important to remember the following:

If you require our bank details call your Solicitor using the details provided on the Engagement Pack – or you can locate their details here: Our People (brethertons.co.uk)
We have no plans to change our bank details – ignore any emails you might receive telling you that these details have changed
Our email address always ends @brethertons.co.uk

Contact from us?

From time to time we may ask you to provide us with your bank details or other sensitive information (identification documents, bank statements and other such documents) to assist us with the legal transaction.

Criminals are aware of this and may try to use this to their advantage. Please exercise caution when responding to these emails from us. If you have any concerns about the origin or the intention of any contact received from us or purporting to be from us, please do contact the Fee Earner allocated to your matter.

Keep Cyber Safe

There are some easy ways for you to keep safe –

Make sure you have up-to-date antivirus and malware software on every device you use
Do not use public Wi-Fi when accessing on-line banking
Criminals use social media to identify when you might be making or receiving a payment and may attempt to intercept the payment. Please avoid posting updates on social media
Use long and unique passwords: especially for your email accounts