US Federal Judiciary beefs up security after cyberattack

The United States Federal Judiciary is taking additional steps to strengthen the protection of sensitive documents after a recent cyberattack on its case management system.

It’s also prioritizing working with courts to mitigate the impact of the recent breach on litigants.

In addition, the Administrative Office of the United States Courts, which manages the federal court filing system, has continued to collaborate with Congress, the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, and other partners in the executive branch to reduce the risks and impacts of these cyberattacks.

The majority of the documents filed with the US Federal Judiciary’s electronic case management system are publicly available. However, some filings contain confidential and proprietary information that is sealed from the public.

“These sensitive documents can be targets of interest to a range of threat actors. To better protect them, courts have been implementing more rigorous procedures to restrict access to sensitive documents under carefully controlled and monitored circumstances,” the United States Courts says in a press release.

The statement doesn’t say what documents or incriminating information might have been breached, when the incident happened, who’s responsible for this data breach, or how they gained access to the United States Courts’ systems.

According to Politico, the news outlet that broke the story, the Federal Judiciary fears that the identities of confidential informants involved in criminal cases at multiple federal district courts have been compromised.

Politico’s sources say the breach happened on or around July 4th. However, the Department of Justice is still trying to determine the full extent of the incident.

The incident does not affect the most highly protected federal court witnesses, as those thought to face exceptional risk for cooperating have their real identities held on separate systems maintained by the Department of Justice.