More than three dozen websites from top law firms were down Thursday morning, apparently for at least several hours.
Gone from the home pages of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, Covington & Burling, Baker & McKenzie and other firms were links for attorneys and offices, among other firm details. Instead, there were links that included: "In Pain? Get Relief Now" and "Find Injury Attorneys."
The websites are hosted by One North Interactive LLC, which provides technology services to law firms. The Chicago-based company said in a message to Akin that "a hosting incident" happened at 7:35 a.m. Eastern.
"This incident was caused by an issue with a critical DNS record. The issue with the DNS record has been resolved," One North Interactive said. "However, changes to DNS take time to propagate through the full DNS tree. We will continue to monitor the issue and provide updates as we have them.”
Benjamin Harris, an Akin spokesman, said his firm's website wasn't attacked by hackers, noting that the back end of the website is functioning correctly.
Jen Bullett, a One North Interactive spokeswoman, wrote in an email that none of the websites were hacked and security wasn't breached. The company said in a client alert that the incident was the result of an "oversight in renewing a critical domain name" in its transition to an independent business. One North Interactive in August announced its formation and its acquisition of Hubbard One web group from Thomson Reuters. The deal was finalized on Monday.
"One North’s commitment to clients and the market is complete transparency, which must also include errors and mistakes on our end," Bullett wrote. "We acknowledge that this outage puts our clients in a very challenging spot and are working collectively as we speak to address all issues."
Other downed websites included the main pages of Patton Boggs; Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr; Hogan Lovells; McDermott Will & Emery; White & Case; Mayer Brown; Sutherland Asbill & Brennan; DLA Piper; Holland & Knight; Baker Botts; Foley & Lardner; Troutman Sanders; Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton; Jones Day; Weil, Gotshal & Manges; Reed Smith; Sullivan & Cromwell; Morrison & Foerster; Davis Polk & Wardwell; Ropes & Gray; Shearman & Sterling; Proskauer Rose; Dechert; Debevoise & Plimpton; Cravath, Swaine & Moore; Bryan Cave; Katten Muchin Rosenman; Fish & Richardson; Schulte Roth & Zabel; Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner; Dorsey & Whitney; Hughes Hubbard & Reed; Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel; Chadbourne & Parke; and Sutherland Asbill & Brennan.
As of 2:47 p.m., the websites of the law firms listed appeared to be operating properly.
