Hackers breach Arizona court system, steal data on “many Arizonans”
Among those affected are people with current or former protective orders.
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- The Arizona Supreme Court says hackers copied personal information from the state court system.
- Officials are notifying affected people, but have not identified which courts or databases were hit.
- Some people with protective orders fear exposed addresses or location details could put them at risk.
- The court says it has no evidence the stolen data has been shared further.
Key Takeaways by nexos.ai, reviewed by Cybernews staff.
The Arizona Supreme Court announced on Friday that the state court system had been hit by a cyberattack and warned that hackers copied “personally identifiable information about many Arizonans.”
The Supreme Court said in a statement that it's alerting people whose information it believes was compromised but will not share further details that “could adversely impact the investigation” or those affected.
Officials said there is currently no evidence that the stolen information has been shared with anyone else, with the attack targeting the court system broadly rather than any specific individual.
The court added that because of the format of the copied information, it’s unclear whether most of the data can be easily read.
“As soon as I learned about this outrageous criminal attack on Arizona’s Courts, I immediately called our team together to formulate a response,” said Chief Justice Timmer.
“I personally spoke with the top-ranking FBI leader in the state, and I pledged our full commitment to supporting their investigation and minimizing the likelihood that the information will be used to further jeopardize Arizonans,” she added.
In the shared notifications sent to affected individuals, the Arizona Supreme Court’s Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) said the state court system was the target of a cyberattack by criminal hackers or their bots “within the last 36 hours”.
According to reports, among those who received such notifications were people with current or former protective orders. Such orders are intended to protect people from others, including in cases involving abuse, harassment, or domestic violence. Their confidential addresses and other location information may have been compromised.
“Reading that the criminals may have copied my information about me and my location made me feel very vulnerable,” one affected woman who said she has had a protective order against her abuser for several years told AZFamily. “My first thought was, my location, I guess, was my first immediate scare.”
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“The whole reason I had a protective order and had my information on file with the court was because I need that information protected,” she added.
It’s currently unclear which courts or databases were affected or how many people had their information compromised.
A few weeks ago, a unit of Thomson Reuters detected a cybersecurity incident involving the company’s C-Track case management platform that affected court systems in 11 US states, the US Virgin Islands, and Canada. The company’s investigation found that some affected court records contained names and other personal information.
