Mike Mosedale at the Minnesota Lawyer wrote:"Talk about your dirty tricks. A new internet scam is targeting lawyers by exploiting one of their great fears: getting slapped with a disciplinary complaint. The emails, which typically appear to originate with a state bar association, come with a subject line informing the recipient that they are the subject of an ethics complaint, which is supposedly attached to the email.
Of course, the email address is spoofed, the attachment contains ransomware, and any lawyer who clicks on it is up the proverbial creek without a paddle – and, possibly, all their client files.
Ken Jorgensen, ethics partner at Dorsey & Whitney LLP, said he recently learned about the scam on a professional responsibility listserv, with the first reports coming out of California. It has since spread to Nevada.
While he doesn’t know if any Minnesota attorneys have been victimized, Jorgensen felt compelled to ring the warning bell because such scams tend to proliferate rapidly.
“Somebody really has figured out how to push lawyers’ buttons,” Jorgensen observed. “I can’t imagine a lawyer clicking on anything quicker than a message saying, ‘a complaint has been filed against you and here it is at this link.”
Jorgensen said the scam probably poses the biggest risk to small firm lawyers and solo practitioners because they are less likely invest in sophisticated anti-virus software than their big firm counterparts.
Still, when it comes to clicking on attachments, a healthy dose of skepticism is always in order.
For those unlucky lawyers who let down their guard, Jorgensen observed, ransomware poses ethical and practical dilemmas for which there are few obvious answers: “Do I pay the ransom? What happens if I can’t get my client data back? What do I do for my clients? Do I have to notify them?”
In Minnesota, he said, practitioners should be aware that the Office of Lawyers Professional Responsibility does not use email to notify attorneys about complaints."
Wow, they are getting craftier by the month. This will very likely be exported to all states individually. Forward this to your legal partners, and tell them to download this 20-page PDF.
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