CIFAS protective registration

Scotbot

I have discovered my accountant's email has been hacked. The hackers got my email address and sent a phishing email but I don't know what else they got. I have updated my passwords but is it worth getting CIFAS protective registration?

eskbanker

To a certain extent the potential exposure will depend on the amount of data needed to support your relationship with your accountant, i.e. why you have one, is it for a limited company rather than personal stuff, etc, but if the accountant hasn't been careful enough with protecting their credentials adequately (strong enough passwords, 2FA, etc) then you could ask them to fund the protective registration, even if just to make a point....

MattMattMattUK

eskbanker said:

To a certain extent the potential exposure will depend on the amount of data needed to support your relationship with your accountant, i.e. why you have one, is it for a limited company rather than personal stuff, etc, but if the accountant hasn't been careful enough with protecting their credentials adequately (strong enough passwords, 2FA, etc) then you could ask them to fund the protective registration, even if just to make a point....

If an accountant's systems were that insecure I would question whether I still wanted them to be my accountant...

[Deleted User]

Question would be what the accountant stores - they shouldn't have any useful info like credit cards or bank accounts saved in free text form but if they got phished and someone had a key logger installed it's a different matter.

I would simply keep a religious check on all 3 credit agencies (MSE Credit Club, Credit Karma and Clear Score for the free front ends) and if there are any suspicious applications then challenge them and then consider the CIFAS, simply because it's a pain for manual reviews of credit if you need some