STAY SAFE ONLINE

Please be aware: if you receive an email from Osbornes Law notifying you of a change to our bank account details, it is a scam.  We will never use email to notify our clients of a change to our bank account details. If you receive such an email, and/or doubt if it is genuine, please forward it to the firm’s Data Protection Officer, at: DPO@osborneslaw.com

Online scams are designed to swindle you out of your money using your computer and the internet, either through fake emails or websites.  Online scamming is now a multi-billion pound industry, and everyone needs to be vigilant to protect themselves.

Below are tips to reduce the chance of others getting hold of personal information through your tablet, smart phone or computer:

• Only allow someone to remotely access your computer if they are from a trusted source, like your internet service provider, and only if you called them for help.
• Create passwords which are long and use lower and upper case letters as well as numbers and symbols. Change passwords regularly and don’t share them.
• Use antivirus software and keep it up to date.
• Understand what software you are installing on your computer or phone and make sure you are using a secure site.  A secure site will have a web address beginning with https not http – the ‘s’ stands for secure.
• Make sure your firewall is switched on.
• Do not open suspicious or unknown emails, email attachments, texts or pop up messages. Emails with unusually worded subject headings are often not genuine.
• Reputable online businesses will not contact you to ask for your log-in details, such as your password or user ID. If they do, it is a scam. You should only need to provide this information when you are logging onto a service such as online banking.
• Before entering payment card details on a website, make sure the link is secure.

If you have opened a scam email

• Do not reply to it.
• Do not click on any links in the email or open any attachments.
• If you have already clicked on a link and opened a website, don’t give any personal information out.
• If the email purports to come from Osbornes Law, please forward it to IT@osborneslaw.com

Other useful information

• Tips for staying safe: www.getsafeonline.org
• Reporting fraud and cybercrime: www.actionfraud.uk

Suspicious Email Reporting Service

• Starting in April 2020, the National Cyber Security Centre has launched the Suspicious Email Reporting Service: a new email address for reporting scam emails to a government department. This cybersecurity service, an offshoot of GCHQ, says it has set up an automated programme to test the validity of a website if one is mentioned in a suspected phishing email, and any sites found to be phishing scams will be removed from the internet.

• To make use of this, simply email any suspicious email to report@phishing.gov.uk.
• However, if the email purports to be from Osbornes Law, please email the firm’s Data Protection Officer instead, at DPO@osborneslaw.com