8 2GM Friday August 7 2020 | the times
News
A libel trial involving the former British
spy behind a dossier that allegedly
linked President Trump and the Krem-
lin was wrongly live-streamed abroad,
judges have said.
Aleksej Gubarev, a Russian business-
man, is suing Christopher Steele after
the former MI6 agent published his
dossier in 2017. The Russian has
claimed in the High Court that the dos-
sier made “seriously defamatory allega-
tions” about him. Mr Steele denies this.
Mr Justice Warby heard the claim at
the Royal Courts of Justice last month
and has yet to deliver his ruling. During
the hearing he ordered that journalists
and members of the public could not
attend because of the coronavirus lock-
down but could watch proceedings
screened to a nearby room via Zoom.
The judge has said he discovered that
a solicitor at a law firm representing Mr
Gubarev sent the Zoom link to seven
people, who without permission
watched part of the trial. They includedLawyer in British spy’s libel
trial shared court Zoom link
Mr Gubarev’s wife and daughter in
Cyprus, the mother of one of his busi-
ness associates in Russia — who gave
evidence — and his lawyers in the US.
Mr Justice Warby asked two other
judges to examine issues relating to the
“professional conduct” of McDermott
Will & Emery, the US law firm.
Dame Victoria Sharp and Mrs Justice
Andrews, who heard evidence at the
High Court last week, said an order
made by Mr Justice Warby had been
disobeyed and they were concerned
that for three days proceedings were
live-streamed outside the legal jurisdic-
tion of England and Wales. The two
judges said yesterday that McDermott
Will & Emery, which has offices in
London, had referred itself to the Solici-
tors Regulation Authority.
The lawyer who passed on the Zoom
link had made a “full and unreserved
apology”. The judges accepted it was
not a deliberate defiance of a court
order. A spokesman for the law firm
said: “We respect the judgment of the
court and regret our error.”Jonathan Ames Legal EditorHackers target
camera maker in
ransom attack
The camera maker Canon has become
the latest big company to be hit by a
ransomware attack, as researchers re-
veal that such demands by hackers have
risen threefold in the past year.
The Japanese tech company’s online
systems have been affected by a large
outage, taking down its US website
along with its email and other internal
services. The disruption is believed to
have been caused by a piece of software
called Maze. It may also have facilitated
the theft of large amounts of personal
data, according to the tech website
Bleeping Computer.
Bleeping Computer released a ran-
som note it reported had been sent to
Canon that said: “We hacked your net-
work and now all your files, documents,
photos and databases and other impor-
tant data are safely encrypted with
reliable algorithms.”
In a ransomware attack hackers put
a virus on to a victim’s computer, allow-
ing them access to all the company’s
files, which are then encrypted. The
only way these files can be accessed is
with a mathematical key known only to
the attacker. The hackers demand a
ransom for the key, and threaten to leak
sensitive data online.
A spokesman for Canon UK & Ire-
land would not comment on the reports
of a hack but said: “We are aware that
Canon USA are experiencing system
issues. An investigation is taking place.”
Hackers have been targeting bigger
and more famous companies that may
be willing to pay large sums to get their
data back. Among them in recent
months have been the smartwatch
maker Garmin, which is believed to
have paid more than $10 million, and
the foreign exchange service Travelex,
believed to have paid $2.3 million.
The US cybersecurity company
Coveware reported recently that the
average ransom paid to hackers has
jumped to $178,254 (£135,000), from
$36,295 (£27,000) only a year ago. “Sixand seven-figure demands have be-
come routine,” it said, adding that
payments have climbed steadily as
hackers use “big game tactics” to go
after high-profile companies.
Until recently ransomware was used
mostly by opportunistic “spray-and-
pray” hackers who rarely studied their
victims and “issued nominal demands
that remained constant whether the
victim was a ten-person company or a
1,000-person enterprise”.
The Times reported last week that a
cross-party group of MPs had demand-
ed tougher laws against the payment of
ransoms to criminal groups, after it was
revealed that British companies paid
about £210 million to hackers last year.
Coveware said that companies had
become more willing to pay as hackers
started to go through with threats and
release data. Its report said that 30 per
cent of ransomware cases between
April and June had included a threat to
release data and that in 22 per cent this
was actually done, up from 8.7 per cent
in the previous three months.
Jérôme Robert, director at Alsid, a
cybersecurity specialist, said: “Canon is
seemingly the latest in a long list of
high-profile attacks against brands
effectively being held hostage by the
Maze cybercriminal group.
“Although yet to be confirmed by the
brand itself, what is most alarming
about this attack is that it fits the pat-
tern of the ‘double extortion ransom-
ware attack’, whereby cybercriminals
not only encrypt and ransom the seized
data but also threaten to leak it.”
This has emboldened criminals to
“increase their ransom demands, citing
the added ramifications a data leak
could cause on top of the ransomware
event”, the Coveware report said, add-
ing that some companies paid even if
they could restore files from a backup.
It added that ransomware tools were
available to “cybercrime beginners” in
“free do-it-yourself kits” online. “Deep
technical expertise is no longer needed
to participate in the cybercrime
economy”, the report said.Tom Knowles
Technology Correspondent8
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Screen sirens A 1964 Carry On poster that was part of a copyright case brought by Twentieth Century Fox and a German
bill for The Seven Year Itch, starring Marilyn Monroe, will be sold by Ewbank’s auctioneers in Woking, Surrey, on August 21