The latest cyber risk headlines paint a stark picture for law firms. Whether it’s large-scale breaches like those at Zumpano Patricios and LaBovick Law, AI-generated deepfakes mimicking law firm leaders, or sophisticated phishing emails slipping past traditional security tools, today’s cyber threats are becoming more advanced and more personal by the day.
Data Breaches at ZP Law and LaBovick Raise Alarms Across the Legal Industry
Two Florida-based law firms, namely Zumpano Patricios (ZP Law) and LaBovick Law Group, are now at the center of major cybersecurity incidents, exposing sensitive client and third-party data to potential misuse.
Combined, these two breaches have affected more than 282,000 individuals, including protected health information (PHI), personally identifiable information (PII), and financial details.
For law firms, this is a stark reminder that client data, especially in high-stakes practice areas like healthcare litigation, is a high-value target for threat actors.
ZP Law: A Healthcare-Focused Practice Breached
Zumpano Patricios, a law firm headquartered in Coral Gables, advocates for healthcare providers in medical insurance disputes across several states and internationally. The firm has reported a breach affecting nearly 280,000 people.
The firm disclosed to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that attackers accessed and potentially exfiltrated spreadsheets containing confidential medical and insurance-related data.
The firm detected the breach on May 6, 2025, but the timeline of when the unauthorized access first began is still unknown.
The stolen data varied by individual and may include:
- Full names
- Medical provider information
- Health insurance policy details
- Social Security numbers
- Clinical coding data
- Full medical records
The firm has not released further public comments, and an investigation is still underway.
LaBovick Law Group: A Ransom Paid to Silence Hackers
In a separate incident, LaBovick Law Group, headquartered in Palm Beach Gardens with offices in Massachusetts, reported that a ransomware group breached its systems in October 2024, affecting 2,825 individuals.
According to a filing with the Maine Attorney General, the hackers exfiltrated data that included:
- Social Security and driver’s license numbers
- Health insurance ID and claims history
- Banking details
- Full medical records
LaBovick confirmed it paid a ransom in November 2024, stating that the threat actors claimed the data had been deleted and would not be leaked.
Why This Matters for Law Firms
Both incidents underscore a growing trend: law firms, especially those handling sensitive data for clients, are increasingly being targeted by sophisticated cybercriminals.
Whether dealing with protected health information, financial records, or legal strategy documents, attackers see law firms as central hubs of valuable data. The reputational and regulatory consequences of a breach can be devastating.
Attorney Paul Hales, a privacy law expert unaffiliated with either firm, summed it up: “A ransom demand puts a law firm in the precarious position of negotiating with criminals—there’s no guarantee the data is truly deleted.”
Email Security for Law Firms: Your Inbox Needs the Same Protection as Your Endpoints
Law firms have invested heavily in endpoint security. Laptops are monitored in real-time, threats can be isolated instantly, and changes can be rolled back with the click of a button. Yet one of the most critical attack surfaces in your firm, the email inbox, remains defended by outdated filtering tools that haven’t evolved meaningfully since the antivirus era.
That’s a problem. Because for attackers, email is still the easiest way into your firm’s network and your clients’ sensitive information.
The Email Gap: What Law Firms Are Missing
Despite the sophisticated threats facing legal organizations today, many attorneys and law office still rely on traditional Secure Email Gateways (SEGs) to block malicious attachments or phishing attempts.
These tools can catch common spam, but they consistently miss modern tactics like:
- Payload-less Business Email Compromise (BEC) attacks
- Links weaponized after delivery
- Credential theft leading to internal account takeovers
For firms handling privileged communications, client medical records, contracts, or litigation strategies, these gaps can be catastrophic.
Once a single account is compromised, attackers often gain access to shared drives, OAuth integrations, chat logs, calendar invites, and legal documents without triggering further alerts.
It’s a silent breach that unfolds inside your cloud email suite (Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace), leaving little trace unless you’re actively looking for it.
From Endpoint EDR to Email EDR: A Mindset Shift
What saved endpoint security was a shift in thinking: assume a breach is inevitable and build detection, response, and recovery around that assumption. This shift gave rise to Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR), platforms capable of fast isolation, forensic analysis, and rollback.
Email needs the same philosophy.
Modern email security should give IT administrators at your firm the ability to:
- Track and rewind inbox activity after a phishing success
- Challenge a mailbox with MFA when risky rules or OAuth scopes are created
- Automatically revoke access and pull messages firm-wide when compromise is detected
- Visualize account compromise timelines—e.g., who opened a confidential brief post-breach
These aren’t theoretical features. They’re already possible using native Microsoft Graph and Google Workspace APIs. The tools are there; you just need to wire them into an intelligent workflow.
Why This Matters to Legal IT and Cyber Teams
Many law firms, particularly mid-size practices, operate with small security teams. They can’t afford to juggle fragmented tools for SEG filtering, DLP, incident response, and SaaS monitoring.
These law offices need a unified, efficient approach that removes blind spots and streamlines response.
By adopting an EDR-like posture for email, firms can reduce real-world risk instead of chasing theoretical catch rates. And they can answer questions that matter to leadership and clients alike:
- How fast did we detect an inbox compromise?
- What sensitive legal content was exposed before containment?
- How many high-risk app permissions were revoked this quarter?
Where to Begin
You don’t need to overhaul everything at once. Start with small, actionable steps:
- Turn on mailbox audit logs in Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace.
- Centralize telemetry to watch for suspicious rules, sign-in behavior, and file sharing.
- Test message clawback using the platform’s native APIs.
- Evaluate specialized email security tools with EDR-style workflows and automated playbooks.
Each step brings your email defenses closer to where your endpoint security already is.
Modern legal work lives in the cloud. If your email security strategy still relies on filtering and user-reported phish, you’re a step behind today’s threat actors. But with the right tools and mindset, your firm can get ahead and stay there.
Deepfakes Are Getting Smarter [and Law Firms Are in the Crosshairs]
What happens when your managing partner “calls” — and it’s not really them?
AI-generated deepfakes have become easier to create and harder to detect. For law firms, this presents a direct threat to client confidentiality, case integrity, and firm reputation.
Fake audio and video messages are being used to impersonate CEOs, politicians, and yes, even law firm leaders, to deceive colleagues, gain unauthorized access, and steal sensitive information.
What once required sophisticated tech is now as easy as downloading a free AI tool. All it takes is one fake voicemail from a “partner” asking for confidential case files or login credentials, and your entire firm could be compromised.
Deepfakes and the Legal Industry: A Perfect Target
Legal professionals sit on a goldmine of sensitive data, from merger plans to criminal defense strategies. This makes your law firm an appealing target for threat actors, whether they’re cybercriminals looking for a payout or nation-state hackers gathering intelligence.
We’ve already seen political campaigns disrupted and financial institutions duped using deepfake impersonations. The legal sector is next in line, particularly in areas like:
- Wire fraud: A deepfake phone call or video from a senior partner can trick staff into transferring settlement funds or trust account balances.
- Insider leaks: Adversaries may impersonate attorneys to access sensitive client documents.
- Reputation damage: AI-generated videos can fabricate unethical behavior or offensive statements, harming an attorney’s or firm’s credibility overnight.
The legal industry is built on trust between attorneys and clients, between colleagues, and between firms and the courts. But deepfakes chip away at that foundation.
How Scammers Use Deepfakes to Breach Firms
- Job candidates with fake credentials: Some applicants now use AI to clone someone else’s identity or fabricate an entirely new one just to land a legal job, gain access, and exfiltrate data.
- Voice cloning during remote meetings: A video call that feels off? It might be because the “client” or “colleague” is actually an AI-generated impersonation.
- Phishing with a face: Deepfake videos are now being used in social engineering schemes, making phishing emails far more convincing than ever before.
Fight AI with AI to Protect Your Practice
Legal professionals can’t afford to ignore the deepfake threat. Fortunately, the same AI that powers these attacks can also help fight them.
Companies like Pindrop and QiD are deploying AI-based tools to detect voice cloning and synthetic videos. You can use these tools during remote depositions, virtual hearings, or even client intake calls to confirm that the person on the other end is real.
At the same time, policy experts are urging lawmakers to pass stricter regulations on digital impersonation, while cybersecurity firms push for watermarking of AI-generated media.
But technical solutions alone aren’t enough. Law firms also need:
- Staff training to spot suspicious behavior and deepfake red flags.
- Robust identity verification protocols, especially in remote settings.
- Clear policies around virtual communications and emergency fund transfers.
- Vendor due diligence to prevent infiltration through outsourced support.
The deepfake threat is already here. And law firms, with their access to privileged data and influential clients, are prime targets. Whether it’s a fake video deposition, a cloned voice in a Zoom call, or an AI-generated job applicant, trust is now your most vulnerable asset.
Don’t wait until your firm is fooled. Start protecting your people, your clients, and your reputation now.
The legal world runs on confidentiality, trust, and precision — all of which are under threat from modern cyber tactics.
Breaches now involve impersonated identities, weaponized emails, and AI-generated fraud that can undo reputations in minutes. If your firm hasn’t yet updated its security strategy for 2025’s realities, now is the time.
Ready to test your firm’s defenses? Schedule a risk review with our legal cybersecurity experts.
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