Cyber attack caused major outage at Washington state's district and municipal courts

Several district courts across the state of Washington reported operational disruptions following a significant cyber attack on the Washington Courts network.

 

On November 4, the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC), a department of the judicial branch that supports the courts and their programmes, posted on its Facebook page that it identified unauthorised activity on the Washington Courts network.

 

“We have taken immediate action to secure critical systems and are working to safely restore service. Please be advised that there will be intermittent impacts to accessibility of our public website and systems in the coming days as we continue to restore services,” AOC said.

 

In a statement shared with the Seattle Times, Wendy Ferrell, associate director of AOC, said, “In an abundance of caution, we proactively took down our systems to secure them and are working around the clock with leading experts to restore services as quickly as possible.”

 

The outage affected several district and municipal courts across the state, including the ones in Bainbridge Island, Monroe, Puyallup, Milton, and Thurston County who reported operating in limited capacity.

 

In a notice on its website, Thurston County district court said it is “responding to a statewide data system outage that is impacting court operations throughout Washington, and numerous services are limited until further notice.

 

“Court staff are available by email, phone, LiveChat, and in person to assist you as we address the ongoing impacts and limitations,” the district court said.

 

A similar notice was posted on Pierce County’s official website, confirming the “statewide data system outage” and that the district court was operating with “limited services until further notice”.

 

“Essential hearings will proceed as scheduled unless otherwise notified, and probation appointments will continue. Customer service counters are open, though visitors are encouraged to call ahead to confirm services,” reads the notice.

 

AOC is yet to share details on the nature of the cyber security incident, who is responsible for the same or whether any data was exfiltrated from its network. It has, however, assured that it will share more information as and when available.