HWL Ebsworth says ‘business as usual’ after hack

afr.com:

HWL Ebsworth says it has emerged largely unscathed from the cybercrime attack that stole 2.5 million files this year, and that its profitability remains “well above industry average”.

HWLE’s chief strategy officer, Russell Mailler, told The Australian Financial Review there were ongoing issues with the breach, but it was “business as usual” with most clients.

Mr Mailler said the hackers from cybercrime gang ALPHV, also known as Black Cat, gained access to HWLE’s servers after obtaining access via an employee’s “personal device”.

Russell Mailler, chief strategy officer at HWL Ebsworth: ’We won’t lose clients due to the fact that a cyber incident has occurred”. Elke Meitzel

The Financial Review understands the employee is no longer working for HWLE, but their departure is unrelated to the attack in late April.

Black Cat claimed to have taken 4 terabytes of documents which included internal company files and personal employee data, including CVs, IDs, financial reports, accounting data, loans data, and insurance agreements.

The firm, which is helmed by managing partner Juan Martinez, refused to pay a ransom of $US4.6 million ($7.1 million) to the hackers. After a six-week stand-off, Black Cat released a third of the stolen data – about one million documents – to the dark web, with an index.

In June, HWLE obtained an injunction preventing the publication of details of the stolen data.

The National Cyber Security Co-ordinator, Air Marshal Darren Goldie, last said 65 government agencies and departments had been affected, including Home Affairs and Defence. Major banks, insurers and numerous ASX-listed companies were also caught up in the breach.

Air Marshal Goldie told the Financial Review Cyber Summit the firm had been