'Hosting Incident' Hits 36 BigLaw Sites; Some Visitors Offered Personal Injury Lawyer Search Links
An admitted “hosting incident” by a Chicago-based company that provides technology services to law firms created issues at dozens of BigLaw websites Thursday morning that apparently may have lasted at least several hours.
At more than 36 top law firms including Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld; Baker & McKenzie; and Covington & Burling, websites were not working normally. Problems, at least at some firms, included missing links to law office and attorney directories. Instead, visitors were shown links to “In Pain? Get Relief Now” and “Find Injury Attorneys,” among other links to unrelated sites, according to the Blog of Legal Times.
An Akin Gump spokesman said there was no hacking issue; the back end of the firm’s site was working fine. In a email to Akin, the technology services provider, One North Interactive LLC, said a “hosting incident” began at around 7:30 a.m., Eastern Time, the BLT reports. Its article also lists dozens of other BigLaw firms that were affected.
A spokeswoman for One North Interactive said in an email client alert that there was no hacking issue or security breach at any of the affected websites. It attributed malfunctions to an “oversight in renewing a critical domain name,” the BLT recounts. That issue apparently may have been related to the company’s acquisition of the Hubbard One web consulting group from Thomson Reuters, which was finalized Monday.
“One North’s commitment to clients and the market is complete transparency, which must also include errors and mistakes on our end,” wrote spokeswoman Jen Bullett. “We acknowledge that this outage puts our clients in a very challenging spot and are working collectively as we speak to address all issues.”
Additional coverage:
Above the Law: “Law Firm Website Weirdness: What’s Going On?”
