Allen & Overy Alami Data Leaks, Allegedly Hacked By Cybercrime Lockbit Group

JAKARTA - London-based legal firm Allen & Overy announced on Thursday, November 9 that they had experienced "data incident" after posts on social media showed their accounts had been hacked by cybercrime group Lockbit.

The attack, first reported by the Financial Times, came after seven countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom, in June called Lockbit the top data hacking threat in the world.

Allen & Overy's spokesman said the firm had "realized a data incident affecting a small number of storage servers", but their email and document management systems were not affected.

The spokesman also said that Allen & Overy had "several disturbances", but the firm was still operating normally.

"With top priority, we are evaluating which data is affected, and we are informing the affected clients," the spokesperson added. "We recognize that this is an important issue for our clients and we are very serious about dealing with it."

Lockbit claimed responsibility for this hack and gave Allen & Overy a deadline of November 28 to negotiate, according to the criminal group's website on the dark web.

Allen & Overy's spokesman declined to provide further details about the incident.

Lockbit has claimed to have hacked a number of leading companies this year, including aerospace giant Boeing and the British Royal Mail.

In June, Britain and France's cyber surveillance agency warned that hacking is increasingly targeting law firms in an attempt to steal data that could affect outcomes in legal cases.

The cyberattack on Allen & Overy follows last month's confirmation of its merger with US law firm Shearman & Sterling, to create one of the world's biggest legal practices.