BAE Systems cyberattack disrupts US federal court operations

The Administrative Office of the United States Courts (AOUSC) says a cyberattack on government contractor BAE Systems took down the notification system used by federal bankruptcy courts.

In a news release Thursday, the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts said the BAE Systems cyberattack also disrupted the production and distribution of bankruptcy notices.

“The Administrative Office of the United States Courts is in communication with the affected courts and is also coordinating with BAE Systems. BAE is actively investigating this incident and working to restore its 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 associated bankruptcy notification process is unavailable at this time, including bnc.uscourts.gov, bankruptcynotices.uscourts.gov, notices.uscourts.gov, and the National Creditor Registry Service.”

BAE Systems is Europe’s largest defense contractor, designing and manufacturing military technology for the UK and US Departments of Defense, and a leading provider of enterprise IT, cloud infrastructure and cybersecurity services to military, intelligence and civilian government agencies around the world.

“We are aware of an isolated BNC system security incident and have taken immediate action to address it. We are closely coordinating the response with AOUSC,” 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 U.S. Federal Judiciary, the independent judicial branch of the U.S. federal government, also said last year it was strengthening its cybersecurity defenses after a cyberattack hit its electronic records management systems.

The federal judiciary added that while most of the system’s documents are public, it now protects some sealed records containing sensitive information with stricter access controls designed to block attackers.

“The federal judiciary is taking additional steps to strengthen protections for sensitive records in response to recent cyberattacks of a sophisticated and persistent nature against its records management system,” he said.

Although the agency did not confirm a breach of confidential documents, a Politico report at the time indicated that hackers had breached the CM/ECF electronic case management systems and the federal court’s PACER document management platform, accessing sensitive data (including the identities of confidential informants).

Update October 16, 9:28 a.m. EDT: Added BAE Systems statement.