Pennsylvania Courts’ Cyber Battle With an ‘Unknown Opponent’ Enters Third Day

Pennsylvania’s court system is in a “virtual battle with an unknown opponent” that attacked and shut down key portions of the courts’ online services last Sunday and then again on Tuesday after they had been restored.

After the portions of the website had been reported as restored at 3 pm Monday, they were again shut down on Tuesday morning at 10 am.

By 3 pm Tuesday, they were up and running again.

The portions under attack and then restored have to do with access to key online services including those used to file documents with appellate courts and guardianship reports, as well as to view dockets and court summaries on the web.

Some court information, education, statistics and news pages remain offline.

“We remain in a virtual battle with an unknown opponent who continues to target our online platform through what federal law enforcement has deemed a significant and serious denial of service attack,” stated Chief Justice of Pennsylvania Debra Todd in her update at 3 pm on Tuesday.

According to the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), a denial of service cyberattack occurs when malicious actors flood the targeted host or network with traffic until the target cannot respond or simply crashes, preventing access for legitimate users.

The court first reported the disruption at 10:08 pm Sunday.

Court officials have continued to stress that there is no indication that any court data has been compromised and the courts themselves remain open to the public.

Todd said the court information technology and executive teams are working with law enforcement including the CISA, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the F.B.I to investigate the incident.

Pennsylvania Counties Still Restoring Systems After Cyber Incidents

This cyber incident at the state level came about two weeks after a cyberattack compromised the systems of two Pennsylvania county governments, Buck and Washington. The court system of Washington County was totally disrupted along with other county services.

The Washington County courts have been in an emergency mode as officials and outside experts work on a phased-in restoration of services. The county has retained the services of outside counsel, Eckert Seamans, and a cybersecurity and digital data forensics firm, Sylint.