FBI says hackers targeting law firms, PR companies
Headline News
Hackers are increasingly targeting law firms and public relations companies with a sophisticated e-mail scheme that breaks into their computer networks to steal sensitive data, often linked to large corporate clients doing business overseas.
The FBI has issued an advisory that warns companies of "noticeable increases" in efforts to hack into the law firms' computer systems — a trend that cyber experts say began as far back as two years ago but has grown dramatically.
In many cases, the intrusions are what cyber security experts describe as "spear phishing," attacks that come through personalized spam e-mails that can slip through common defenses and appear harmless because they have subject lines appropriate to a person's business and appear to come from a trusted source.
"Law firms have a tremendous concentration of really critical, private information," said Bradford Bleier, unit chief with the FBI's cyber division. Infiltrating those computer systems, he said, "is a really optimal way to obtain economic, personal and personal security related information."
Alan Paller, director of research at SANS Institute, a computer-security organization, said Monday that a major law firm in New York was hacked into in early 2008 in an attack that originated in China.
FBI officials did not immediately return messages for comment on the China connection. The FBI advisory was dated Nov. 1, 2009.
U.S. officials have been cautious about publicly linking cyber attacks to China. But recent government reports have described computer attacks believed to have originated in China, although it is unclear if the intrusions were conducted by, or with the endorsement of, any element of the Chinese government.
Related listings
-
CAPITAL CULTURE: Sotomayor adds celebrity to court
Headline News 11/17/2009Apparently, no one told Sonia Sotomayor that Supreme Court justices are supposed to be circumspect, emerging from their marble palace mainly to dispense legal wisdom to law schools, judges' conferences and lawyers' meetings.Since becoming the first H...
-
Downturn has some law firms downsizing offices
Headline News 11/12/2009"Legal services employment in Boston, which never fully recovered from the previous recession, is now shedding jobs at a rate not seen since the recession of the early nineties," and one result is that some local law firms are unloading no-longer-nee...
-
Lawyer: No `necessity defense' planned for Roeder
Headline News 11/11/2009An anti-abortion activist says he's the one who killed a Kansas abortion provider — and did it because it was necessary to save lives. But one of his attorneys says there's no such thing as a "necessity defense" in state law, and that is not the stra...
Is Now the Time to Really Call a Special Education Lawyer?
IDEA, FAPE, CHILD FIND and IEPs: The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) guarantees all children with disabilities to a free appropriate public education (FAPE). FAPE starts with a school’s responsibility to identify that a child has a disability (Child Find) and create an Individualized Education Program (IEP) to suit the needs of the child.
Forte Law Group is one of only a very few law firms within the state of Connecticut that is dedicated to exclusively representing families and children with special needs.
Parents need to be persistent, dedicated and above all else aware of the many services and accommodations that their child is entitled to under the law. As early as this point within your child’s special education, many parents will often find themselves in the situation asking, “is now the time to really call a special education lawyer?” Here are a few things to consider when asking yourself that question.