A set of hackers from Cl0p Ransomware have claimed to have stolen a large number of files form Jones Day, the law firm that infamously represented former Donald Trump in his attempt to overturn the election results, and posted a number of the illicitly obtained documents on the dark web. According to a Databreaches.net report, hackers belonging to Cl0p Ransomware, recently posted several gigabytes of data allegedly belonging to Jones Day on a site where they publicize their infringements.
Jones Day, one of the world's largest law firms, also confirmed the hack to Wall Street Journal. However, the firm put the blame on Accellion, a company that provides a file sharing system that was hacked earlier this month.
Big Hack
The hackers from C10p Ransomware recently started posting several gigabytes of data reportedly belonging to Jones Day on the dark web. 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. But they didn't get any response from the firm although they believe that they messages were received.
"We hacked their server where they stored data, on attempts to "settle" they responded with silence and we had to upload the data," one of the alleged hackers told VICE. "We emailed them and they ignored us for over a week. We did not encrypt their network, we only stole the data."
The claims seem to be true given that Jones Day although not directly recently revealed a major hack resulting in theft of sensitive information. However, it told the WSJ that it didn't suffer a direct ransomware attack as its own server wasn't compromised directly. Instead, the company put the blame on Accellion, a file sharing system. Jones Day also said that it is currently investigating the incident and is in discussion with authorities and affected clients.
Open to Public Viewing
Among the several gigabytes of documents posted online by Cl0p Ransomware are a few that are easily accessible to the public. Also included is a memo to a judge marked 'confidential mediation brief', and another is a cover letter for enclosed 'confidential documents'.
The hackers are reportedly offering 20 caches related to Jones Day, which range from 1.54GB in size, up to 4.5GB. One of the caches is marked 'extracted emails', according to VICE. That said, despite the denial from Jones Day, the hackers told the outlet that they successfully hacked the firm's servers directly, and said they weren't even involved in the Accellion breach.
Jones Day is one of the largest law firms in the world and has over 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.
Jones Day was recently in news for representing Trump in his dialed attempt to overturn the 2020 US Presidential Election by claiming involvement of voter fraud. It drew immense flak for that but continues to work with the Trump organization even after Biden's inauguration.
