Ransomware And Data Extortion Attacks In Insolvency Scenarios

This article was written in partnership with Alistair Fleming, Helen Clarke, Phillip Magness and Jaana Davidsson of Johnson Winter Slattery.

Ransomware and data extortion attacks are unfortunately becoming increasingly common (see for example, high profile attacks on Canva,¹ Latitude Financial² and recently the Legal Practice Board of Western Australia).³ These attacks typically involve a party (commonly referred to as a 'threat actor') accessing and encrypting a company's systems, and/or exfiltrating (stealing) personal and commercially sensitive information from the company. The threat actor then threatens to destroy the key that would otherwise decrypt the impacted system(s), and/or release the exfiltrated data publicly unless its demands for payment are met.