Excessive Compensation: What to do when the co-owners of your business pay themselves excessively
Recognizing and Avoiding Trademark Scams and Hoaxes
Elder Abuse-Financial Exploitation and Fraud
Legally Qualified: Protecting Against Elder Investment Fraud and Exploitation
Digging Deeper, Episode 1: The Con Queen of Hollywood
What is Consumer Fraud and What Deceptions are Employed?
In an increasingly digital world, the rise in cybercrime involving email scams has become a significant threat to individuals and organizations alike. These sophisticated attacks exploit human psychology and technological...more
"Thank you for your order." "We tried delivering your package." We have all seen these subject lines in our inbox, but some are not so innocent. Business impersonation scams are not new, but some of their tricks are. These...more
The facts are frequently the same. A company that has retained the services of a vendor receives an authentic-looking email from the vendor’s CFO which advises that the vendor has changed its bank account or method of...more
Hackers commit financial fraud by creating a fake email address mimicking the vendor’s name and emailing accounts payable saying that the vendor’s account information has been changed. Funds are then sent directly to the...more
A genuine looking email is sent to a company’s accounts payable department with instructions from its president to pay money to a certain account. The “To” and “From” headers and the signature block look identical to hundreds...more
The Nigerian prince seems almost quaint. Gone are the days when the Nigerian prince was the only nefarious figure menacing our inboxes. A simple yet elegant scheme – our supposed prince unexpectedly fell upon a large sum...more
Losses arising from email scams are usually covered, if at all, under a company’s crime policy. But a recent decision from The District Court in Minnesota suggests that recourse may also be found under an insured’s cyber or...more
Email scams and viruses are nothing new—threats like phishing emails and malware have been around since the days when services like AOL still dominated the internet and email landscape. However, while technology has made a...more
According to Microsoft, 91% of cyberattacks start with an email. In an earlier Privacy Peril we provided information on prevalent words phishers of men and women insert in an email subject line to grab the recipient’s...more
In the face of the ever-growing threat of cyberattacks disguised in emails from phishers, impostors and other increasingly sophisticated security scammers, Google has launched a tool to allow organizations to fight back by...more
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has reported a three-fold increase in consumer reports about scams arising on social media since last year as well as a spike around the time the COVID-19 pandemic began. This includes...more
You receive an email saying that due to COVID-19, a number of regularly scheduled meetings are moving to new dates and times. While hovering over the conveniently provided email link to your calendar, you notice the email...more
Media outlets recently reported that Barbara Corcoran, one of the judges on the popular ABC show "Shark Tank," was the victim of a "spear phishing" scam....more
Risk Management Question - What steps can law firms take to guard against greeting e-card scams? The Issue - Winter is coming, and along with it, your employees may start receiving holiday e-cards on their work...more
Risk Management Question - The Canadian Trade Commission recently issued a warning about a new email scam that involves the sender posing as a Chinese registrar company and attempting to convince the receiver that an...more
On October 16, 2018, the SEC issued a 21(a) report announcing that it had investigated whether certain public companies that were victims of oftentimes unsophisticated, cyber-related frauds had violated federal securities...more
On October 16, 2018, the SEC released an Investigative Report detailing recent email spoofing schemes that caused nine public companies to lose a total of nearly $100 million. Building on its February 2018 guidance about the...more
• The SEC issued guidance in the form of a rare “21(a) report” this week after investigating a series of email frauds impacting 9 unnamed companies. • These email-based frauds, referred to as “CEO scams” or “vendor scams,”...more
According to the Association for Financial Professionals’ Payment and Fraud Controls report, 2017 was a record year for payment fraud. The tactics employed by scammers and other malicious outsiders continue to grow more...more
In this month's edition of our Privacy & Cybersecurity Update, we examine Brazil's new data protection regulation, the French data protection authority's warning to two companies of potential GDPR violations and the U.S....more
On June 12, 2018, the U.S. Department of Justice announced the internationally coordinated arrests of 74 individuals involved in a series of multimillion-dollar business email compromise schemes ("BEC"). Although these...more
Email is the driving force of communication. Lawyers often receive over 100 emails a day. It can be easy to overlook potential scams hidden in your inbox. Hopefully, your firm has the proper security protocols in place:...more
As we move into the busy spring real estate cycle, criminals are targeting real estate agents and closing attorneys with increasing frequency. The scam begins with what appears to be a legitimate email from a party involved...more
When you bring to mind someone “hacking” a computer one of the images that likely comes up is a screen of complex code designed to crack through your security technology. Whereas there is a technological element to every...more
The Internal Revenue Service has warned tax professionals, as the 2016 filing season begins, to be alert to a new email scam by cybercriminals posing as clients soliciting their services. The scam is a variation of a...more