HWL Ebsworth hack: sensitive information from dozens of government agencies may be compromised

The minister for cybersecurity, Clare O’Neil, says the HWL Ebsworth hack is one of the ‘most significant cyber incidents that we’ve experienced as a country over the last year’. Photograph: matejmo/Getty Images/iStockphoto

Hundreds of clients of law firm HWL Ebsworth, including dozens of government agencies, have been in discussions with the firm over whether highly sensitive legal information has been exposed.

The Russian-linked ALPHV/Blackcat ransomware group hacked the law firm in April. Earlier this month, the group published 1.1TB of the data it claimed to have stolen, later established to be 3.6TB worth of data.