Legal Aid Agency chief admits difficulties understanding impact of cyberattack

The Legal Aid Agency chief told MPs that the organisation is still working out the extent of a cyberattack detected in the spring, with a team of analysts examining how much compromised data can be pieced back together. Jane Harbottle said the work could take several more weeks, and she stressed there was, so far, no evidence that data accessed by hackers had been published on the dark web.

In a joint statement with the Ministry of Justice, the LAA said the hack was first identified on 23 April and later described as more extensive than first thought, with attackers having accessed a large amount of information relating to legal aid applicants. At the Public Accounts Committee hearing, Harbottle noted that the first-known entry into the LAA system via its Legal Aid portal was on 31 December last year.

Although not mentioned in this article, this attack was orchestrated by ShinyHunters, and the Legal Aid Agency secured an injunction prohibiting publication or use of any data, though the criminals did not feel obliged to comply, according to Public Technology.