The number of successful cyber attacks against UK law firms rose by 77% in the past year to 954, up from 538 the year before, according to a new study of the threat. Chartered accountants Lubbock Fine said that the wave is driven by criminals seeing law firms as prime targets for ransomware attacks or blackmail.
This is due to the sensitive personal and financial information they hold, which hackers can sell on the dark web or threaten to publish on the internet. Earlier this month, a global survey revealed that ransomware attackers have been paid off at least eight times in recent years.
Read more…
Source: The Law Society Gazette
Related:
- London Hospitals Knew of Cyber Vulnerabilities Years Before Hack
June 14, 2024
A group of London hospitals struggling to contain the fallout from a cyberattack against a critical supplier had known for years about weaknesses that left them vulnerable to hacks, according to documents reviewed by Bloomberg News. The Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, which runs five major hospitals in the London area, has failed to ...
- Police Service Northern Ireland had 260 data breaches in two years, with only a fraction reported or disclosed
June 12, 2024
Figures released under a Freedom of Information request have shown the PSNI had 260 data breaches over two years — but only a fraction of them were reported to external authorities, and even fewer were publicly disclosed. In one case, a data breach was not reported for almost eight years. In 2022, there were 154 breaches, ...
- UK and Canada governments launch full investigation into 23andMe mega breach
June 11, 2024
Data watchdogs in the UK and Canada are now jointly investigating the data breach that hit 23andMe in October 2023. The incident saw a threat actor post 13 million pieces of 23andMe data for sale on the dark web, including people’s origin estimation, phenotype and health information, photos and identification data, raw data, and some other ...
- Hospitals in London declared critical incident after cyber-attack
June 4, 2024
Major hospitals in London have declared a critical incident after a cyber-attack led to operations being cancelled and emergency patients being diverted elsewhere. It applies to hospitals partnered with Synnovis – a provider of pathology services. King’s College Hospital, Guy’s and St Thomas’ – including the Royal Brompton and the Evelina London Children’s Hospital – and ...
- UK: The Princess of Wales’s hospital data breach not referred to police due to suspected ‘decoy’ plan
June 3, 2024
The Princess of Wales’s hospital data breach has not been referred to police as an expert explains that a “decoy” plan could have been in use – meaning her actual medical files were not accessed by the perpetrators. Despite Health Minister Maria Caulfield revealing back in March that the police had been asked to look into ...
- BBC cyber attack exposes details of 25,000 current and former staff
May 30, 2024
The personal data of more than 25,000 former and current BBC employees has been exposed in a major cyber attack targeting the broadcaster’s pension scheme. Information including names, addresses and National Insurance numbers was compromised after files containing personal details were stolen from a cloud data storage service earlier this month. It is not yet known who ...