Tewksbury law firm endures cybersecurity nightmare.

Byline: Pat Murphy

Ellen A. Wright knew she had a problem on her hands when her paralegal told her the Tewksbury firm's Google email account couldn't be accessed.

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"I was getting calls from my unstaffed office at midnight, which was absolutely terrifying."

Ellen A. Wright, Wright Family Law Group

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But the family law attorney only began to comprehend the magnitude of the problem when she discovered none of her internet service providers had tech support available to take her phone calls seeking help in battling the hacker who had seized her email and hijacked her website.

"What's scary is we were in a two-week blackout where we were just dead in the water," Wright says.

Life is starting to return to normal for the five-lawyer firm. But it took trips to Middlesex Superior Court and U.S. District Court in Boston as well as the help of a cybertech expert to get things up and running again.

'Absolutely terrifying'

The nightmare is documented in a state court complaint filed in a lawsuit that was ultimately removed to federal court.

In April 2014, Wright's firm, Wright Family Law Group, contracted with New York-based Wix, Inc., for web-hosting services. On its website, Wix bills itself as "The Place to Create Professional Websites."

According to the complaint, the law firm's contract with Wix called for payment of an annual fee for premium website services that included access to a GSuite email platform. Under the terms of the contract, Wix agreed to provide a secured platform that only Wright Family Law Group would have access to with a provided user name and password.

On Feb. 22, 2019, the firm's account was hacked by an unknown third party and Wright Family Law Group's website was removed. The hacker, who has yet to be identified, also took control of the firm's Gmail account provided through the GSuite platform.

"We were locked out for no real reason," says Wright.

One of the firm's laptops was stolen a few weeks before the hacking occurred. Wright believes there was a connection between the two events, even though the laptop was password protected. She adds that she and her paralegal have been security conscious in their office practices.

"We've always been really good about changing passwords, doing all the due diligence that we're supposed to do to keep everything secure," she says.

To add insult to injury, Wright says her office phones were hacked.

"I was getting calls from my unstaffed office at midnight, which was...