Annual risk outlook: trouble ahead?

Law firms must be more vigilant than ever during COVID-19, the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has warned.

The SRA’s annual Risk Outlook (bit.ly/3m5mJJX), published this week, highlights a rise in money laundering and cybercrime attacks during the first half of 2020, and predicts these threats will increase next year. In the first two months of lockdown, there was a 300% increase in phishing scams, and the SRA predicts similar spikes in future as COVID vaccines become available.

Paul Philip, SRA Chief Executive, said the pandemic had ‘exacerbated many of the wider, day-to-day risks faced by law firms and their clients’.