MinterEllison is one of the country’s largest law firms. It has large practices in competition law, corporate legal advisory, mergers and acquisition advisory and employment law, and a well-known defamation law practice.
The MinterEllison attempted fraud comes as hacking and system protection are of significant focus for large companies. Earlier this year, a report from KPMG, Keeping us up at night, which surveyed more than 300 Australian CEOs in October last year, nominated dealing with cyber risks as the top priority for 2024 and the next three to five years.
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While MinterEllison was able to stave off the attempted fraud by quick detection, other law firms in Australia have suffered major hacking attacks that have caused significant damage.
A cyberattack on HWL Ebsworth in 2023 resulted in 65 government departments having documentation relating to their legal affairs being accessed by hackers. Another law firm, Allens, was the victim of a cyberattack in 2021 in which hackers were able to access important documents relating to work it had done for Westpac.
Australians lost a record $3.1 billion to scams in 2022, according to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.
MinterEllison regularly does work for this masthead.
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