Educated Attorney: If George Bush’s Email Can be Hacked, So Can Yours…

Last week, a few Bush family member email accounts were hacked and their contents were made public. There were no juicy details attached to this hacking, just a few paintings by big Bush (he paints now) and a few emails to little Bush and Dorothy Bush. Something that probably should have remained private were the emails between little Bush and other family members talking about his father dying and asking for some help with a eulogy. Keep in mind that if this can happen to the Bush’s using AOL, this could happen to anyone at any time using a public email solution. AOL dropped the ball here as they were the email company hacked. Years ago Sarah Palin’s Yahoo account was hacked and all her most interesting emails were made public. After the fact, she was told not to send government related emails to others using a public email account. These people don’t have law firms, but they are high profile individuals and their correspondence methods should be very secure; more secure than AOL and Yahoo. At any time, this can happen to you if your emailing clients with a public email account, meaning AOL, Yahoo, MSN & Hotmail just to name a few. We have clients who do this, and despite our warnings continue to do it to this day. As attorneys, you deal with confidential information, and if your a patent attorney, your dealing with confidential intellectual property. You owe it to your clients to secure all electronic transmissions and get a private & secure email solution for your firm’s protection. Below are the pictures of Bush paintings that were hacked.