There has been a recent rise in a deeply concerning trend: increasingly convincing phishing campaigns impersonating prominent law firms in Eastern Europe. These fraudulent communications often prompt urgent actions—such as document uploads or payment instructions—styled to look entirely authentic with precise branding, email signatures, and professional formatting.

The recently published CEE Legal Matters article “Don’t Trust That Email” gives some professional insights on the issue. PRK Partners’ Michal Matejka, Musat & Asociații’s Ștefan Diaconescu, DLA Piper Hungary’s Zoltán Kozma, and our own Yoanna Ivanova, Partner and Head of Data Protection at Gugushev & Partners have all contributed to describing, understanding and protecting yourself from such attempts.

The experts warn that law firms' unique access to confidential client data and financial dealings makes them especially attractive to threat actors. The attackers craft emails with compelling narratives designed to trick recipients into supplying sensitive information or completing payments. Despite increasingly elaborate detection technologies, the human element remains the weakest link: even seasoned professionals can be deceived by a well-disguised phishing email.

To guard against these sophisticated scams, readers should always verify unexpected or out-of-the-ordinary emails through a trusted secondary channel, ideally via a known phone number. Equally important is maintaining a healthy scepticism toward unsolicited attachments and links, even if messages appear to originate from trusted senders.

Let’s stay vigilant and protect our communications: a moment of caution today could prevent significant exposure tomorrow.

You can find the full article here: https://ceelegalmatters.com/magazine-articles/10486-issue-12-3/30007-don-t-trust-that-email-an-increasingly-recurring-note-from-law-firms