Millions of documents obtained from a Panama-based law firm reveal links to 72 current or former heads of state, such as Russian leader Vladimir Putin, according to media reports.

The leak of some 11 million documents came from - it is likely they will look closely at anyone named in the data. The Revenue now has a good amount of experience dealing with data leaks, and is likely to respond quickly and efficiently. As with the HSBC Geneva data leak, anyone named in the list with UK tax affairs is likely to receive a letter and face follow-up investigation. Panama is a popular location for this kind of structure- especially for those who are internationally mobile, and those who spend a lot of time in the Americas. There is likely to be a wealth of data for the Revenue to look at."

 Varonis vice president of strategy and market development, David Gibson, said the vast leak also raises questions about company's security practices. Varonis is a US-based firm.

"Email servers tend to be one of the largest troves of valuable information. If you were spying on a company, the CEO’s mailbox would be a pretty fantastic place to see what was going on. One of the security challenges with email is that the most valuable mailboxes tend to be the least secured. This is because executives and law-firm partners often have assistants and other people that get access to their mailboxes – some even have banks of admins that all have access for long periods of time. Another security challenge with email is that mailbox activity is rarely logged or analyzed, making it very difficult to spot abuse or theft. Lastly, Microsoft Exchange has “public folders” where a lot of sensitive information can pile up, and a lot of companies don’t pay much attention to securing. If an assistant’s account gets compromised through phishing or password stealing, or if an assistant turns out to be acting maliciously, the contents of the executive’s mailbox can easily be compromised without detection."