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Sydney firm Brydens Lawyers has obtained a court order banning “dissemination of the impacted confidential information” in the wake of an alleged ransomware attack.
Editor’s note: This story first appeared on Lawyers Weekly’s sister brand, Cyber Daily.
Brydens Lawyers, which has six offices across NSW, has obtained an injunction to restrain any dissemination or publication of data exposed by a possible ransomware attack in late February this year.
The firm’s principal, Lee Hagipantelis, shared limited details of the incident in several social media posts on 13 March, confirming that the cyber attack “resulted in unauthorised access to some data on its servers”.
The Australian Cyber Security Centre and Officer of the Australian Information Commissioner were both informed of the incident, and Hagipantelis said at the time that Brydens’ IT systems had been restored and an investigation was underway.
According to an undated update attributed to Hagipantelis on the firm’s website, Brydens obtained an interim injunction from the Supreme Court of NSW on 14 March to “restrain dissemination of the impacted confidential information”.
“This injunction also has the consequence that any third party who, knowing of the orders against the threat actor, does anything which facilitates, assists or permits a breach of the orders, or which undermines their effect, may be in contempt and be exposed to penalties, potentially including imprisonment,” Hagipantelis said.
“These steps are being taken by Brydens Lawyers to protect the interests of its clients, employees and other impacted parties.”
Lawyers Weekly’s sister brand, Cyber Daily, has asked for a copy of the sealed orders and for further commentary on the state of the firm’s investigations.
While Brydens’ initial public comments only said that it was investigating what data may have been impacted, Hagipantelis told staff on 7 March that “it appears that there has been a very significant and potentially damaging security breach of the firm’s server and the integrity of our data”.
According to The Sydney Morning Herald, a foreign threat actor was actively attempting to extort Brydens regarding the data breach. SMH also reported that 600 gigabytes of data were compromised in the attack, including case, client, and staff data.
However, at the time of filing this story, no ransomware group or other threat actor has claimed responsibility for the hack.
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David Hollingworth
