Legal and digital experts offer vital advice at free breakfast seminar

Pictured are Teresa Thomas and Stuart Green who will talk at the seminar.

A DEVASTATED victim of cyber crime lost nearly £900,000 when their computer was hacked, unbeknown to them, during what was to be a move to their dream home, a digital security specialist has revealed. 

Stuart Green, of regional firm SJG Digital, will be the guest speaker at a free digital security seminar being held in Beverley next month. The Digitally Scared or Digitally Prepared?, event is organised by leading regional law firm Wilkin Chapman solicitors, and will be held at East Riding College, Flemingate on November 2.

Starting with refreshments and registration at 7.30am, delegates will hear Mr Green speak about a lack of awareness of cyber crime among businesses.

He said: “With firms the main issue is a lack of awareness. For example, staff will see an email come into the system which looks convincing, click on it and all hell can then be unleashed.”

He also warned of a lack of protection against ‘drive-by’ downloads, whereby someone infects a website and that infection spreads the second someone else browses the site.

“The whole system can then become infected with no-one knowing how it got in there in the first place, nor will the firm have appreciated just how easy it is to do,” explained Mr Green.

Blackmail and capturing personal data to steal money are two of the main aims of the criminals, he said, citing one particular case of conveyancing fraud.

“The way conveyancing fraud works is by the bad guys gaining control of one of the computers involved in the transaction and watching the email flow. When the time is right, the victim of the fraud is duped into transferring the cash into an account that doesn’t belong to the firm involved but belongs to the bad guys. This is usually through an email which looks like it is from the firm but isn’t. In this particular case, the victim transferred nearly £900,000 into the bad guys account and nothing could be recovered,” said Mr Green. 

The cyber criminals had hacked into the computer of the victim some months before the transaction, saw the opportunity and took it. 

“Just because a computer doesn’t show that it has been hacked, doesn’t mean it hasn’t been hacked,” Mr Green adds.

Meanwhile at the seminar Wilkin Chapman Partner and Head of Employment, Teresa Thomas, will be advising delegates on the importance of having sound social media policies in the workplace governing both professional and personal use.

Also speaking is Alan Nesbitt from Forrester Boyd on the awareness of tax turning digital and uncertainty around the change.

Booking online is essential, with a finish time at 10am, and more details can be found at www.wilkinchapman.co.uk/events