Elain Brown Tech 07.29.2022 22:Jul PM EDT

Did the US Federal Courts Fall Victim to Another Data Breach?

The US Federal Courts has not detailed the scope of the recent data breach it experienced.

The Federal Court has fallen victim to a cyberattack that resulted to compromise a plethora of documents from the systems of the agency in early 2020.

According to testimony provided by the Chair of the House Judiciary Committee Jerrold Nadler, the document management system that was breached had a surprising depth and extent.

Other members of Congress, such as Senator Ron Wyden (Democratic Party of Oregon), voiced their concern that the Department of Justice (DOJ) had been concealing information about the breach and was refusing to explain it to the general public and to Congress.

US Federal Courts Cyber Attack

The U.S. Department of Justice (COJ) in March informed the judiciary about the cyber attack involving the federal court records.

According to testimony given to lawmakers on Thursday (July, 28) by the department's top national security attorney, the United States Department of Justice is conducting an investigation into a cyber breach that involved the federal court records management system.

Reuters reports that the head of the Justice Department's National Security Division, Matt Olsen, told the U.S. House of Representative Judiciary Committee that the data breach posted a significant concern.

Olsen made these comments in response to questions posed by Representative Jerrold Nadler, the Democratic chairman of the panel.

In addition, according to Nadler, the committee did not become aware of the shocking depth and scope of the breach until the month of March.

Olsen stated, "While I can't speak directly to the nature of the ongoing investigation of the type of threats that you've mentioned regarding the effort to compromise public judicial dockets, this is of course a significant concern for us given the nature of the information that's often held by the courts."

The data breach to the federal courts was reportedly executed by three foreign malicious actors, although the DOJ have not yet officially mentioned the nationalities of the actors or the countries behind the attack.

Olsen also did not make any statements regarding the identity of those responsible for the attack; however, he did mention that his division was generally focused on the threat posed by cyber attacks coming from foreign nations such as North Korea, Russia, China, and Iran.

For now, the Justice Department was collaborating closely with federal judiciaries located all over the country in order to find a solution to the problem.

US Federal Court Going Low-Tech

The US Federal Courts stated that in early 2021, some of the instead of handling important case documents through the publicly available Case Management and Electronic Case Files system, they since held back and opted to go low-tech, according to The Verge.

One of the reasons for this policy change was due to the SolarWinds incident. The SOlarWinds cyberattack caused massive damage that allowed malicious actors to gain access to the systems of businesses and government agencies.

At the moment, there is currently no public information available regarding the specifics of what the attackers were able to obtain or how they were able to break into the judicial system in the first place. It is also unknown when exactly officials from the Department of Justice discovered the hack.

Reuters reported that the US Federal Courts is in the process of working to modernize and update its electronic case management and filing system and its related online portal called PACER, to minimize and lessen the system's vulnerability from cyberattacks.