UPDATE: The hacker group Maze has re-listed the Texas law firm Baker Wotring on its site under the heading "full dump" and has now released the firm's data. The data includes pain diaries from personal injury cases, fee agreements, HIPPA consent forms and more. Baker Wotring once again declined to return requests for comment. Maze had taken Baker Wotring's name off its list late last week, leading to the conclusion that the firm paid the hacker's ransom. The republishing of the firm name and the data dump suggest otherwise.

Maze, the ransomware software and hacking group, has removed Texas law firm Baker Wotring from its "client" site, signaling that the 10-lawyer litigation firm may have opted to pay cybercriminals to halt publication of potentially sensitive data.

The firm was put on Maze's public target list on Nov. 29 and had remained there until late last week. Baker Wotring did not respond to multiple requests for comment, though it previously acknowledged a breach.

Maze's willingness to expose its targets' data has alarmed cybersecurity experts. After using its ransomware to gain control of a target's data, the group publishes the name of the company or law firm to a hosted site. At least five small law firms appear to have fallen victim to the group since last month.

If a target doesn't concede to the group's demands—previous victims were asked to pay in the $1-2 million range—Maze may release a sample of stolen data as proof of the hack and a further incentive. If the mark does pay, the hackers say they will then release the data and take the company's name off the public site.

Brett Callow, a cybersecurity specialist who has been tracking Maze, said that, while a payment may lead to a target being delisted, there is no way to know for certain if the hackers will stick to their word and not release the data at another date.

It's not clear whether Houston-based Baker Wotring firm paid to have its name removed from the site or whether the hack was formally reported.

"I see Baker Wotring is no longer named on the website, which probably means they paid to be delisted and for a pinky promise that the group's copies of the stolen data would be deleted," Callow said in an email. "In a previous case, the group asked for two amounts: $1 million for decrypting the victims' data and $1 million for destroying the data they had stolen."

An ALM investigation last year reviewing state-reported law firm breaches showed that hundreds of firms, large and small, had quietly reported breaches of varying magnitudes in recent years. Callow estimates that only 10-20% percent of breaches are reported.

According to Callow and Michael Maschke, CEO of Virginia-based digital forensics firm Sensei Enterprises, many hacking victims will avoid disclosing breaches in order to sidestep the potential fallout from clients.

Maschke said that his firm advises clients not to pay the ransom, but added that Maze brings a new calculus into the ransomware game.

"Maze is one of the first that exfiltrates the data," Maschke said. "Before, you had a 50/50 shot of getting the encryption key and freeing the data, but now that they are taking the data offsite, there are more concerns."

Maschke said that he couldn't think of any reason Maze would have taken Baker Wotring's name off its list unless it was paid to do it.

Texas, like many other states, has relatively weak data breach reporting requirements, and it is often at the discretion of the hacked entity as to whether to disclose an incident.

Another Texas firm, Irving-based Schachter & Harris, informed the Office of the Attorney General of Maryland as well as the Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation of Massachusetts of an attack in 2017. The firm sent a letter describing the incident as well as the demands the hackers made around its data. In this instance, the hackers held the data hostage and demanded payment for its release.

The firm stated at that time that it had not paid the hackers. Representatives did not respond to a request for comment.

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