Listed law firm hit by cyber attack

Client data has been stolen from  legal and professional services firm Gateley in a cyber-attack.

In a statement to the markets, the listed firm said it is “confident that the incident has been confined to a very small part of its data store”, amounting to approximately 0.2% of total data but that the affected data “did include some client data”.

Gateley has offices in Leicester and Nottingham

“When the company’s investigations are further progressed, those clients that have been affected will be notified. The company has already notified the relevant regulators and law enforcement agencies, as well as the Information Commissioner’s Office,” the firm said.

Investigations will continue over the next few days.

The firm added: “The intrusion was quickly identified by the company’s IT team and it acted immediately to secure the company’s systems. Based on the information gathered to date, the company is confident that its security controls were effective in limiting the impact of the incident.

“The company took some of its systems offline while it undertook necessary extensive investigations into the incident, supported by a professional cyber security support team mobilised as part of its cyber security insurance facility. The company has carefully but rapidly re-established its core systems to enable its staff to continue to work and communicate with its clients.

“The board has seen no evidence that the financial performance of the company has been impaired.”

Rod Waldie, chief executive of Gateley, said: “IT security is of paramount importance to Gateley and we had carefully planned for the occurrence of risk that a cyber breach could have on the business. Incidents of this nature are, sadly, prevalent. I am grateful that the prompt actions of our IT team have limited the impact of this incident and enabled us to resume our business operations swiftly.

“We are continuing to work with specialist cyber security professionals to investigate the incident and identify any parties that may have been affected and we will, of course, contact anyone affected in due course.

“In the meantime, we are restoring all of our systems in a safe and secure manner as quickly as possible and do not expect at this stage any significant disruption to our day-to-day activities or financial performance.”