The FBI’s Washington field office is investigating suspected cyberattacks on several major US law firms, believed to have been carried out by Chinese hackers, The New York Times reported.
At the centre of the probe is Williams & Connolly, a Washington firm known for representing high-profile figures including Bill and Hillary Clinton. The firm confirmed that hackers had breached part of its computer systems, calling the intrusion as a “zero-day attack” — a term used for exploiting previously unknown software vulnerabilities.
“During the incident, a small number of Williams & Connolly attorney email accounts were accessed by leveraging what is known as a zero-day attack,” the firm told The New York Times.
“Importantly, there is no evidence that confidential client data was extracted from any other part of our IT system, including from databases where client files are stored,” it added.
The firm added that it had taken steps to block the threat and that there was no evidence of any ongoing unauthorised activity on its network.
According to sources cited, the same group of hackers is suspected of breaching more than a dozen other law firms and technology companies in recent months, which is part of a cyber espionage campaign aimed at collecting sensitive information related to US national security and international trade.
To assess and contain the breach, Williams & Connolly has brought in cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike and law firm Norton Rose Fulbright. Based on their preliminary investigation, the attackers appear to be linked to a nation-state actor, consistent with other Chinese operations previously identified by US cybersecurity experts.
Neither the FBI nor the Chinese Embassy in Washington has commented on the matter, The Times reported.
US officials have repeatedly accused China-linked hacking groups of targeting American institutions — from corporations and defense contractors to universities and now, major law firms — often with the goal of stealing intellectual property or to gain detailed data of US policymaking.
In a September report, cybersecurity firm Mandiant said Chinese hackers had been exploiting zero-day vulnerabilities across several industries, particularly in the legal and software sectors. “The targeting of the US legal space is primarily to gather information related to US national security and international trade,” the firm noted.
With inputs from agencies
