The Administrative Office of the US Courts (AOUSC) says a cyberattack on government contractor BAE Systems has taken down the notice system used by federal bankruptcy courts.
In a Thursday press release, the Administrative Office of the US Courts said the BAE Systems cyberattack also halted the production and distribution of bankruptcy notices.
“The Administrative Office of the US Courts has been in communication with the impacted courts and is also coordinating with BAE Systems. BAE is actively investigating this incident and working to restore operations,” AOUSC said.
“As a result of the incident, all access to the BNC systems and websites that BAE operates on behalf of the Judiciary and the related bankruptcy noticing process are unavailable at this time, including bnc.uscourts.gov, bankruptcynotices.uscourts.gov, notices.uscourts.gov, and the National Creditor Registration Service.”
BAE Systems is Europe’s largest defense contractor, designing and manufacturing military technology for the UK and US defense departments, and a major provider of enterprise IT, cloud infrastructure, and cybersecurity services to military, intelligence, and civilian government agencies worldwide.
“We are aware of a security incident that is isolated to the BNC system and have taken immediate steps to address it. We are coordinating closely with AOUSC on the response,” a BAE Systems spokesperson told BleepingComputer.
An AOUSC spokesperson was not immediately available for comment when BleepingComputer contacted them earlier today for more details on the attack.
The US Federal Judiciary, the independent judicial branch of the US federal government, also said last year that it was strengthening cybersecurity defenses after a cyberattack impacted its electronic case management systems.
The federal Judiciary added that while most documents in the system are public, it now protects certain sealed filings containing sensitive information with stricter access controls designed to block attackers.
“The federal Judiciary is taking additional steps to strengthen protections for sensitive case documents in response to recent escalated cyberattacks of a sophisticated and persistent nature on its case management system,” it said.
While the agency stopped short of confirming a breach of confidential documents, a Politico report said at the time that hackers had breached CM/ECF electronic case management systems and the PACER federal court document management platform, gaining access to sensitive data (including the identities of confidential informants).
Update October 16, 09:28 EDT: Added BAE Systems statement.
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