Cyberattacks on UK Law Firms Surge by 77% Amid Rising Ransomware Threat

By ISB Staff Reporter for Information Security Buzz
Wednesday, August 28, 2024

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The number of successful cyber attacks on UK law firms has soared by 77% over the past year, rising from 538 incidents to 954, according to a recent study.

A Grim Record

“Unfortunately, this is just the tip of the iceberg: a significant number of sophisticated and successful intrusions into law firms remain undetected and thus never reported,” says Dr Ilia Kolochenko, CEO at ImmuniWeb and Partner & Cybersecurity Practice Lead at Platt LLP. “Moreover, when an intrusion is performed by skilled attackers, even detection may be technically impossible due to the unpreparedness of law firms and sophistication of the attacks, let alone investigation as all digital traces will be artfully wiped out.”

Kolochenko says professional cyber mercenaries and organized crime increasingly have law firms of all sizes in their crosshairs to get their hands on the highly valuable clients’ data that legal professionals hold.

“Sometimes, exploitation of compromised data – including but not limited to financial and M&A information, trade secrets, personal lives of celebrities or influential politicians – may bring hundreds of millions of dollars to perpetrators or the mastermind behind the technical evildoers.”

Worst, Kolochenko says with the rapid proliferation of freely available GenAI, lawyers incrementally fall victim to various types of social engineering and phishing attacks, which are not really technical but rather aptly exploit human error.

“These attacks are pretty simple and inexpensive to orchestrate, however, they can bring even better results for criminals compared to advanced hacking campaigns aiming at taking control of law firms’ networks and servers. 2024 will certainly hit another grim record of breached law firms.” Read Full Article