The Panama Papers and the Law Firm Behind It: Shady Lawyers Caught With Their Pants Down

Presented at The Eleventh HOPE (2016), July 22, 2016, 2 p.m. (60 minutes)

The Panama Papers are beyond question one of the most significant acts of whistleblowing next to the Snowden revelations. Yet, the full measure of what has been leaked remains to be disclosed to the public, raising considerable questions about what happened, who is implicated, and the legal and illegal acts of Mossack Fonseca, the law firm behind the breach. This talk will review what the Panama Papers leak is, introduce the breached law firm, examine Mossack Fonseca's explanation of the breach, deconstruct and debunk their explanation, present MF systems that were more likely the cause of the breach, present alternative and more plausible theories of the breach, examine MF communications that indicate questionable and possibly illegal activity within and without the United States, step through the legal implications of MF's activities, identify the right Infosec questions clients should be asking of law firms, and provide a question and answer session to ruminate about the breach and its source.


Presenters:

  • Alexander Urbelis
    Alexander Urbelis, CEO of Black Chambers Inc., an information security consultancy, and a partner in the Blackstone Law Group, is an attorney who has also been part of the Infosec community for more than 20 years, and a part of 2600 in one way or another since 1994. Over the years, Alex has worked for the U.S. Army, Dartmouth College's Institute for Security Technology Studies (a federally funded cybersecurity and counterterrorism research center), the CIA, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, the international law firm of Steptoeand Johnson, and as information security counsel and chief compliance officer of one of the world's largest luxury conglomerates. Alex holds a BA, summa cum laude, in philosophy from Stony Brook University, a JD, magna cum laude, from Vermont Law School, and the BCL from New College, Oxford University.

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