The Kansas Judicial Department has revealed an replace on a cybersecurity incident it suffered final month, confirming that hackers stole delicate recordsdata containing confidential info from its methods.
In mid-October 2023, the Kansas courts authority disclosed a “safety incident” that impacted the supply of a number of methods, together with the eFiling system legal professional’s use for doc submission, digital fee methods, and the case administration methods utilized by district and appellate courts.
Over a month later, the system standing stays unchanged, with the next companies flagged as presently offline:
- Kansas Courts eFiling: For digital doc submitting
- Kansas Safety Order Portal: For digital doc submitting
- Kansas District Courtroom Public Entry: For looking district courtroom instances
- Appellate Case Inquiry System: For looking appellate courtroom instances
- Kansas eCourt Case Administration: Utilized by district courts for case processing
- Kansas Legal professional Registration: For looking attorneys by identify or bar quantity
- Kansas on-line marriage license utility
- Central Cost Middle
An replace posted on the Kansas Judicial Department newsroom known as the impression on these methods short-term and underlined the extra dire side of the cyberattack by confirming a knowledge breach.
“Whereas the impression on our info methods is short-term, the cybercriminals additionally stole information and threatened to submit it to a darkish website if their calls for weren’t met,” reads the press launch.
“Based mostly on our preliminary evaluate, it seems the stolen info consists of Workplace of Judicial Administration recordsdata, district courtroom case data on attraction, and different information, a few of which can be confidential below regulation.”
The scenario holds the core parts of a typical ransomware assault, involving system outage brought on by native file encryption and in addition double extortion threatening to publish stolen recordsdata if the ransom is not paid. Nonetheless, the announcement doesn’t specify the kind of the assault.
The Kansas authority estimates it will need a number of weeks till all methods return to regular standing. It guarantees to inform impacted people as quickly as its evaluate of the stolen information has been accomplished.
The assertion takes a extra private flip, calling this an assault “in opposition to all Kansas” and characterizing the perpetrators as evil.
“This assault on the Kansas system of justice is evil and felony. Right now, we specific our deep sorrow that Kansans will undergo by the hands of those cybercriminals.” – Kansas courts.
On the time of writing, no identified ransomware operations have publicly taken accountability for the assault.
