John Sweeney, president of IT and cybersecurity advisors LogicForce, said that law firms are taking proactive steps rather than reactive steps. However, while he doesn't necessarily agree with paying ransoms, he said that it 'makes sense' to be prepared, reports Business Insider.

This year has seen several data breaches where hackers have demanded ransoms to be paid in bitcoin. At the beginning of the year, an Austrian hotel was ordered to pay a bitcoin ransom to regain access to its rooms; in May, Disney's Pirates film was held for ransom by hackers; and in June a South Korean firm paid a $1 million bitcoin ransom in order to retrieve its data.

Unsurprisingly, the Financial Supervisory Service of South Korea has told local banks not to cave into threats by DDoS attackers, following the million-dollar ransom paid by the South Korean firm.

Yet, while countless individuals have paid ransom demands to hackers to regain access to their files that's not always the case. One example is the NotPetya hack, which occurred this summer. Even though victims paid the ransom, it was reported that they were unlikely to have received the decryption keys to access their files.