A&O suffers cyber attack

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By Thomas Connelly on

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Impacts small number of storage servers, says firm


Magic Circle law firm Allen & Overy (A&O) has been targeted by hackers.

A spokesperson for the global outfit confirmed it had “experienced a data incident impacting a small number of storage servers”.

Hacking group Lockbit targeted the firm with ransomware, according to post on social media platform X. The post, dated 8 November, claims the group will publish data from the firm on 28 November.

The A&O spokesperson said:

“Investigations to date have confirmed that data in our core systems, including our email and document management system, has not been affected. The firm continues to operate normally with some disruption arising from steps taken to contain the incident. Our technical response team, working alongside an independent cybersecurity adviser, took immediate action to isolate and contain the incident.”

They continued: “Detailed cyber forensic work continues to investigate and remediate the incident. As a matter of priority, we are assessing exactly what data has been impacted, and we are informing affected clients. We appreciate that this is an important matter for our clients, and we take this very seriously. Keeping our clients’ data safe, secure, and confidential is an absolute priority.”

A&O isn’t the first major law firm to be targeted in this way. In 2017, Legal Cheek reported that hackers had taken DLA Piper‘s computer systems and phones offline using malicious software.

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