The company, which is headquartered in London and has an office in Bristol, has several well-known clients.

Among them are JLL, AXA, Mace Group, Alvarez & Marsal, Cushman & Wakefield, Holman Fenwick Willan, Liberty Global, Charterhouse, Cinven, Xaxis, BDO, CBRE, BNP Paribas, Grant Thornton, Electoral Commission, Clearwater International, HCA Healthcare, Mount Anvil, Investec, NHS, PwC, HSBC, Korn Ferry, Osborne Clarke, Willis Tower Watson, Herbert Smith Freehills, Baker McKenzie, Hogan Lovells, Lend Lease and Crowe.

It provides services such as pitches and proposals, digital services, design and production, Microsoft Office solutions, brand positioning, brand guardianship, campaigns and training.

Ako is one of the growing number of ransomware families that are designed to exfiltrate information from systems that are attacked, before encrypting the data on-site and generating a ransom note.

The note gives information about how much and to whom the victim should pay in order to decrypt the files that have been encrypted. It also gives the victim a deadline to react.

If the victim does not respond, then the attackers begin releasing the stolen information in drips and drabs. In this particular case, they have threatened to release more data after another seven days.

iTWire has contacted Hamilton Brown for comment.