Beware of E-Mail Bearing O’Melveny Name

Law Firms

Posted Apr 15, 2008, 06:23 am CDT
By Debra Cassens Weiss

Thousands of CEOs have received spyware e-mails bearing the name of O’Melveny & Myers.

The e-mails contain attachments purporting to be grand jury subpoenas and are sent from a uscourts.com address, Legal Pad reports. But computer users who open the attachments could install spyware that logs their keystrokes.

The U.S. Courts website is warning that the subpoenas are bogus and should not be opened.

Above the Law broke the story. The blog's David Lat investigated after wondering why O’Melveny turned up seventh on a Google list of the day’s trends. Lat spoke with Marty Metz, director of information technology for the firm, and learned that the spammers listed O'Melveny and some other law firms as well.

“They include a reference to a subpoena in a case that has been long since over, and [some] even misspell O'Melveny's name,” Metz told Above the Law. “It's an Internet hoax, a spam attack."

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Posted by Al DeDonis - 2 months, 2 weeks, 4 days, 17 hours, 50 minutes ago

It’s a problem. More importantly, most top business guys are not tech saavy. Hence, they’ll crap a brick if they see something important and will immediately follow through, which is what the spammers want them to do. People need to get wise to spammers, pishers, and whatever they’re called. I think they’re coming from China. Aren’t those Chinese satisfied enough without pishing on us again?
Posted by R - 2 months, 2 weeks, 4 days, 11 hours, 31 minutes ago

At my firm, keystroke-logging spyware would mainly turn up motions for extension of time, forwarded YouTube videos, and eBay purchases.

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