Operational note – further e-mail scam claiming to be from SRA
Issue Date: 04 March 2014
Operational note – further e-mail scam claiming to be from SRA
A further e-mail scam has been discovered claiming to be from the SRA and targeting law firms.
Reports have been received from solicitors’ firms saying they had again received email messages purportedly from the SRA, some of which referred to pending investigations. These have been sent from an email account that does not end in @sra.org.uk.
This email does not originate from the SRA and firms are advised not to open the email, to forward it to [email protected], and then to delete it. Firms that have opened the attachment are advised to report it to their bank and IT provider.
The matter has again been reported to appropriate authorities for investigation, and will also be investigated internally The information scammers are using is freely available in the public domain and there is nothing the SRA can do to prevent these e-mails being sent.
Firms are reminded that only e-mails ending @sra.org.uk are legitimately from the Authority. E-mail is the profession’s preferred method of communication, and further details on how the SRA uses e-mail is available here: http://www.sra.org.uk/email/.
Because the SRA have to continue sending e-mails to firms with important regulatory information, firms are asked to take extra care identifying genuine SRA messages.