A law firm in Panama called Mossack Fonseca has recently been in the press due to the hack on their email server. The result of that hack? Over 11 million files stolen from one of the world’s most secretive companies!
Mossack Fonseca is a Panamanian law firm that specialises in setting up offshore companies. A host of celebrities, politicians and the global rich are linked to the leak. The files lay bare how at least a dozen world leaders have been using tax havens to hide their wealth. At least 72 current or former heads of state are implicated, including dictators accused of looting their own countries.
It seems that the firm paid little attention to the security and integrity of their systems, particularly their Windows and Exchange Systems and over 1 Terabye (1TB = 1024 Gigabytes) of information was siphoned off!
The impact of this on the firm has been devastating and while they are in damage control mode, it remains to be seen if the firm survives this breach.
Surprisingly, hackers have continued to probe the company’s servers and have found other vulnerabilities in their systems. The company remains under attack even now.
As always, don’t scrimp on the maintenance and updates of your systems and ensure you have a proper security system in place, comprising regular security audits and reviews conducted by external auditors and specialist firms!
If you’re concerned about your organisation’s threat profile or just want to know more, please feel free to contact me at vish.seera@transputec.com or on 0208 584 1400.
