Largest US court forced to close after ransomware attack
The Los Angeles County Courthouse, the largest courthouse in the United States, was hit by a ransomware attack that forced the court to shut down its entire operation for a day.
A statement on the court’s website said all 36 courthouses and external systems, such as the MyJuryDuty Portal, have been shut down while IT teams work to remove the ransomware from the system and restore the infrastructure.
“As many of the Court’s network systems were still inaccessible on Sunday evening, the Court will close tomorrow to allow an additional day to get essential networks back online,” an initial update said.
No links to CrowdStrike
A later update indicated that work would resume, but that disruptions should be expected:
“Thanks to the tireless work of court staff and security experts, the Court will reopen all 36 courthouses on July 23. Court users should expect delays and potential impacts due to limitations in functionality,” the update said.
The attack was first noticed in the early hours of Friday, July 19, the court said, adding that the attack was not related to the CrowdStrike update fiasco and that there was no evidence of any data compromise.
Whether that will change in the future remains to be seen. At the time of writing, no ransomware operators or affiliates have been identified as having taken responsibility for the attack. However, most ransomware groups today are conducting dual extortion campaigns, exfiltrating sensitive data from compromised systems and then threatening to release the data online unless a payment is made. This makes it highly unlikely that sensitive data will not be compromised.
The Los Angeles County Court is the largest court in the United States, BleepingComputer reports it has more than 4,800 employees and 41 courts in 26 cities in the Los Angeles area.
Through BleepingComputer