Bermuda cyber hack: Offshore law firm data hack leaves super-rich bracing for financial details to be released

Bermuda-based Appleby, which has offices in British tax havens, said some client data 'compromised' in 2016 cyber incident - leak comes 

A leading offshore law firm with clients including the super-rich and international corporations has revealed it suffered a “data security incident” that may result in customers' private information being leaked.

Bermuda-based Appleby, which has offices in a number of British overseas territories, said some of its data had been “compromised” in the 2016 cyber incident.

The firm issued a statement after it was contacted by a group of investigative journalists probing allegations concerning its “business and the business conducted by some of our clients”.

Without specifying, Appleby said it had taken the allegations “extremely seriously” and after investigating the claims itself concluded “there is no evidence of any wrongdoing, either on the part of ourselves or our clients”.

According to a report by the Daily Telegraph, a number of media organisations are preparing to release details of the leaks over the coming days.

Appleby said: “We are an offshore law firm who advises clients on legitimate and lawful ways to conduct their business.

“We do not tolerate illegal behaviour. It is true that we are not infallible. Where we find that mistakes have happened, we act quickly to put things right and we make the necessary notifications to the relevant authorities.

“We are committed to protecting our clients' data and we have reviewed our cyber security and data access arrangements following a data security incident last year which involved some of our data being compromised.

“These arrangements were reviewed and tested by a leading IT forensics team and we are confident that our data integrity is secure.”