A law firm is being held to ransom by hackers.

RollOnFriday understands that Duncan Lewis Solicitors has been infiltrated by ransomware and that the 700-staff firm, which specialises in immigration law, has been told to pay £3 million to the hackers if it wants to regain control of its data.

Ransomware is malicious software which encrypts the hijacked data until the victim pays for a key to translate it. The threat usually comes with a time limit for payment, after which the data is either exposed on the web or converted permanently to gobbledegook. A source said the firm's compromised material "will likely include sensitive information involving thousands of vulnerable asylum seekers".
 

Duncan Lewis' systems were breached last Friday and its website is currently displaying a notice informing visitors that the firm cannot send or receive email. In a statement the firm told RollOnFriday that its IT department was "liaising with external IT Forensics" to "try and ascertain the source and nature of this compromise and impact". They are now a) looking for a smart alec kid who hacked the Pentagon when he was 11 to hack the hackers using a back door virus b) cutting up bits of paper to make £500 in a gym bag look like £3m c) switching their computers off and on again.

The firm said it had reported the breach to the SRA and the police.