Legal Aid Data Breach Leaks Millions of Sensitive Records, MoJ’s Poor Cybersecurity Practices Slammed

By Alicia Hope for CPO Magazine
Wednesday, May 28, 2025

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When leaked to the public, that information could irreparably damage individuals who were arrested or interrogated without being charged with any crime. Individuals who also requested a public defender and later changed to private representation were also affected. The data breach put these individuals at risk of cyber extortion and blackmail.

“We may expect a massive but targeted blackmailing campaigns against the victims, as well as their employers or relatives,” said Dr. Ilia Kolochenko, CEO at ImmuniWeb. “For example, if a person has (or had) an unspent conviction and currently works in a sensitive area of economy, such as wealth management or financial audit, his or her employer may wish to pay a ransom to avoid bad publicity for the firm – even if all underlying risks were duly addressed as provided by law, industry standards and applicable internal policies.”

While the ministry has yet to release the actual number of individuals impacted, threat actors claim the data breach exposed over 2 million records. Read Full Article