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Two U.S. law firms were among the victims of a “complex transnational organized cyber-crime network” targeted in Justice Department indictments based on cooperation between U.S. and European officials. 

A DOJ statement did not name the firms but said one was in the District of Columbia and the other was in Wellesley, Massachusetts.

The hackers were using GozNym malware, which is designed to capture online banking login credentials. The hackers then gain access to bank accounts and steal money from victims by laundering those funds through U.S. and foreign beneficiary bank accounts controlled by the hackers. In all, the group was hoping to get away with more than $100 million, the DOJ said.

This isn't the first time law firms have been the targets of cyberattacks — and it likely won't be the last. The American Lawyer reported in January that an undisclosed U.S. firm had been hacked by the Chinese government-sponsored group APT10 between November 2017 and September 2018.

A study conducted by IBM in 2018 found a breach discovery takes about six months plus an average 69 days to contain the breach. Law firms, because of the sensitive information they retain on clients, are attractive targets for those looking to obtain data to sell or expose. By hacking one system, attackers can get information on potentially hundreds of companies and individuals.

The indictment charged Alexander Konovolov, aka “NoNe” and “none_1” of Tbilisi, Georgia, organized and led the GozNym network that infected about 41,000 victim computers.

U.S. Attorney Scott W. Brady of the Western District of Pennsylvania announced the indictments Thursday at Europol in The Hague, Netherlands.

“International law enforcement has recognized that the only way to truly disrupt and defeat transnational, anonymized networks is to do so in partnership,” Brady said. “The collaborative and simultaneous prosecution of the members of the GozNym criminal conspiracy in four countries represents a paradigm shift in how we investigate and prosecute cybercrime. Cybercrime victimizes people all over the world. This prosecution represents an international cooperative effort to bring cybercriminals to justice.”

The defendants are in Russia, Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova and Bulgaria. Without the hope of extradition to the United States, five Russian hackers.

The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Charles A. “Tod” Eberle, the chief of national security and cybercrime for the Western District of Pennsylvania.   

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