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A “significant amount” of personal data from legal aid applicants has been accessed by hackers after a cyber attack on England and Wales’s Legal Aid Agency, leading the body to suspend its online service.
The Ministry of Justice said on Monday that it was made aware of a hack on April 23 and immediately took action. However, the agency discovered on Friday that the hack was more extensive than first realised and the group behind the breach had accessed “a large amount of information relating to legal aid applicants”.
The hacked data may include contact details and addresses of applicants, their dates of birth, national ID numbers, criminal history, employment status and financial information dating back to 2010, the MoJ said.
“Since the discovery of the attack, my team has been working around the clock with the National Cyber Security Centre to bolster the security of our systems so we can safely continue the vital work of the agency,” said Jane Harbottle, chief executive of the LAA.
She added: “However, it has become clear that to safeguard the service and its users, we needed to take radical action. That is why we’ve taken the decision to take the online service down.”
