Federal courts system breach being investigated by Justice Department

A cyber breach into the federal court records management system is being investigated by the National Security Division, the head of the division, Matt Olsen, told lawmakers on Thursday. The National Security Division is an arm of the U.S. Justice Department.

Olsen’s branch deals mostly with cyber attacks from foreign nations like North Korea, China, Russia and Iran. According to him, the breach into the country’s federal court filing system had been done by “three hostile foreign actors.”

Answering questions from the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, Olsen said that while he was unable to comment on the nature of the investigation, the breach was of “significant concern” given the “nature of the information that’s often held by the courts.”

The Democrat chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Representative Nadler said that they had been made aware of the “startling breadth and scope” of the breach in March 2022. According to Olsen, the Justice Department was working closely with the courts to address the lapse in cyber security.

In January 2021, the judiciary’s administrative arm, The Administrative Office had stated that they would be adding new security protocols to protect their electronic case filing and management systems after it was revealed that they had been compromised. 

Since then, the judiciary has been working on upgrading its ageing electronic filing and case management systems to prevent a repeat of the 2021 breach. PACER, the portal used to electronically access federal public court records, is also being strengthened. 

The Administrative Office made a statement on Thursday, July 29, 2022 saying that cybersecurity was a high priority and that it was taking “significant actions to protect our systems and the sensitive information they contain.”

Also Read: North Korean hackers foiled after FBI returns ransomware payments

Though it is not clear exactly when the breach occurred, this is just the latest in cyber attacks against the U.S. government. On July 19, 2022, the Federal Bureau of Investigation had announced that it had recovered roughly $500,000 in crypto paid by healthcare providers in Kansas and Colorado after North Korean hackers had breached their systems, affecting the day-to-day work of the doctors and nurses at those facilities.