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3w ago

Federal Courts Adopt Zero-Trust Defenses After Cyberattack on Case Filing Systems

After the breach, the Administrative Office introduced zero-trust defenses alongside stricter user controls, securing informant records, court dockets, sealed filings, sensitive case data within its aging electronic filing platform.

The Thurgood Marshall Federal Judiciary Building houses the offices of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts, the Federal Judicial Center, the United States Sentencing Commission, and the Office of the Clerk of the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation. (Image credit: Wikimedia Commons / D Ramey Logan)
Computers are seen inside a federal courtroom in New York on June 6.
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Overview

  • News outlets reported that a cyberintrusion identified around July 4 may have exposed confidential informant records within CM/ECF and PACER and led to tampering of roughly a dozen court dockets.
  • In an August 7 statement, the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts said it had deployed zero-trust architectures, expanded multifactor authentication and tightened user permissions across its filing systems.
  • The judiciary is collaborating with Congress, the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security and other executive branch partners to assess the breach’s full impact and trace the responsible threat actors.
  • Judge Michael Y. Scudder, chair of the Judicial Conference’s Committee on Information Technology, has warned that CM/ECF and PACER are outdated and unsustainable, prompting plans for a phased replacement of the legacy platforms.
  • Lawmakers from both chambers have received briefings on the incident and are considering funding requests and oversight measures to accelerate modernization of the federal court’s electronic filing infrastructure.