Law firms ‘choosing to pay ransoms’ to cybercriminals
Australian law firms are choosing to pay ransoms to cybercriminals rather than deal with the potentially ruinous consequences of data being posted on the internet, according to a data security expert.
Ben Di Marco, of global risk firm WTW, said law firms “tick every box” for hackers and that more than 20 local firms had been targeted.
Ben Di Marco: after one success, cybercriminals will “often go against a whole run of organisations”.
HWL Ebsworth, Australia’s largest legal partnership, is still dealing with the fallout from the release of huge amounts of stolen data after it refused to pay a ransom of $US4.6 million ($7.2 million) to the Russia-linked group BlackCat.
Mr Di Marco, vice president of the Australian Society for Computers & Law, has told security forums and legal conferences recently that the industry has a reputation for paying up.
He said commercial firms with 10 or more partners were “high-value targets” because they handled huge amounts of confidential information, and had a porous IT environment with supply chain vulnerabilities.
“Malicious actors also know there is a history of law firms actually paying ransom demands,” Mr Di Marco told The Australian Financial Review.
“Over the last few years, both here and globally, a number of law firms have paid ransoms.
“What you find is that where threat actors have success against one organisation, they’ll often go against a whole run of organisations that have a similar profile.”
ALPHV, or BlackCat, has a strategy of “big game hunting”, and experts say 40 per cent of the attacks it has executed in Australia have been on professional services firms.
Cyber threat: A tweet sent out after the HWL Ebsworth data breach in May. Twitter
Those affected by the HWLE data
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