The phased restoration of the state’s online court system continues and Kansas Supreme Court justices have released new information about how the situation unfolded.
Chief Justice Marla Luckert, along with Justices Eric Rosen, Dan Biles, Caleb Stegall, Evelyn Wilson, K.J. Wall, and Melissa Standridge, say the judicial branch was “a victim of a sophisticated foreign cyberattack” responsible for shutting down the Office of Judicial Administration’s information systems and forced other systems, including attorney registrations, appellate case inquiries, the central payment center and online public access portal, to all go offline since the attack Oct. 12.
The justices’ statement says all information systems were quickly disconnected from outside access, but the cybercriminals stole data — possibly Judicial Administration files, district court case records being appealed and possibly confidential data — and threatened to post that information to the dark web unless their demands were met. The state continues its work to confirm the data and thus determine the full scope of the theft.
The justices say the cyberattack was an “evil and criminal” attack on the Kansas justice system. It also comes as government has become the third-most-targeted sector for cyberattacks and cybercrime. There is no official timetable for restoring all online systems, but the justices say it may take several weeks for all systems to operate safely.
