Prominent U.S. law firms Quinn Emanuel and McDermott said on Thursday that they suffered recent data breaches and had notified law enforcement, amid heightened cyber risks for firms that hold sensitive client ​and personal information. It was not clear who was responsible for the two breaches or whether they ‌were related. Large law firms’ extensive holdings of confidential business and personal data have made them attractive targets for cybercriminals. Quinn Emanuel said in an August 25 letter to a lawyer for short seller Muddy Waters that some files related to the company were accessed ​in a breach less than two weeks earlier. The letter, which was viewed by Reuters, said an “unauthorized ​third party obtained access through social engineering” on August 14, and that some of the ⁠information exposed involved Muddy Waters files that Quinn Emanuel obtained in a lawsuit in Florida.

Full report : Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP and McDermott Will & Schulte LLP both recently suffered data breaches.