Law firm that represented Trump in his bid to overturn the election is hacked: Cyber-criminals steal 100GB of files and post them on the dark web
Jones Day famously - and controversially - represented former President Donald Trump in several of his unsuccessful attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election
The hackers, who go by the name Cl0p Ransomware, recently posted what they claim is several gigabytes of data on a site where they advertise their breaches, Databreaches.net reporte
The online posting by Cl0p Ransomware includes a few individual documents that are easily accessible to the public. Also included is a memo to a judge marked ‘confidential mediation brief (above)
Another file is a cover letter for enclosed ‘confidential documents’ (shown above)
The hackers, who claim to have more than 100GBs of data in total, said they first reached out to the law firm on February 3, informing them of the breach and telling them data had been stolen.
As of Tuesday, the hackers told WSJ that while still yet to receive a response, they do believe the Jones Day received their messages.
Jones Day, meanwhile, denied it had fallen victim to a direct ransomware attack and instead blamed the breach on Accellion, a company the firm previously used to transfer large files electronically.
Accellion announced on February 1 that it was the target of a sophisticated attack on December 23. All customers were promptly notified, the company said.
‘The company is conducting a full assessment of the FTA data security incident with an industry-leading cybersecurity forensics firm. We will share more information once this assessment is complete,’ a company spokesperson said.
‘For their protection, we do not comment on specific customers. We are working with all impacted FTA clients to understand and mitigate any impact of this incident, and to migrate them to our modern kiteworks content firewall platform as soon as possible.’
Despite Jones Day's protests, the hackers told the Journal that they did hack the firm's servers directly, and said they weren't even involved in the Accellion breach.
Demonstrators hold up signs in front of an inflatable giant rat in the likeness of U. S. President Donald Trump outside the NYC office of Jones Day law Firm on November 13, 2020 in New York City
Law firms have long been considered a prime target for hackers because their files often contain confidential information, including the size of settlements, negotiations about pending deals, and legal strategy that would normally be shielded from public viewing because of attorney-client privilege.
When it comes to Jones Day specifically, the firm is one of the largest in the world and has in excess of 2,500 lawyers on its books globally, and boasts $2 billion in annual revenue.
The firm also has deep ties with the Trump administration, after more than a dozen of its lawyers worked in the White House, including Don McGahn, who served as White House Counsel until 2019.
The company was widely criticized for signing on to help the Trump administration in its efforts to overturn the 2020 election late last year.
The now-embattled Lincoln Project even started a PR campaign against the firm to attempt to force it to withdraw as Trump’s counsel.
But the efforts came in vein, with Jones Day continuing to work with Trump even after Biden’s inauguration.
When asked by VICE what their motivation was for hacking Jones Day to begin with, Clop Ransomwear responded: ‘And what do you think? Financial of course,’ adding a wink-face emoji.
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