The Administrative Office of the US Courts says a cyberattack on government contractor BAE Systems has taken down the Bankruptcy Noticing Center (BNC), the system that produces and sends notices for all federal bankruptcy courts. In a statement on Thursday, the office said all access to the BNC systems and websites BAE operates for the judiciary is unavailable, including bnc.uscourts.gov, bankruptcynotices.uscourts.gov, notices.uscourts.gov and the National Creditor Registration Service. Production of bankruptcy notices has stopped.
BAE Systems told BleepingComputer it is aware of a security incident “isolated to the BNC system” and has taken immediate steps to address it, coordinating with the courts office. Neither the courts office nor BAE has said what kind of attack it was or whether any data was stolen, and The Record reports the office did not respond to its questions on that point. CISA directed The Record to the US Courts, and the FBI did not respond to its request for comment.
The incident adds to earlier trouble for federal court technology. BleepingComputer notes that last year the judiciary strengthened protections for sensitive filings after an attack on its case management system, which Politico reported had exposed sensitive data. The Record adds that the Department of Transportation confirmed on Wednesday that a safety agency contact center was briefly taken offline after a contractor was hit by a cyberattack.