Washington courts’ systems offline following weekend cyberattack

​​Court systems across Washington state have been down since Sunday when officials said “unauthorized activity” was detected on their networks.

This ongoing data system outage affects all state courts’ judicial information systems, websites, and associated services.

According to statements from affected state courts, the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) acted quickly after discovering the incident to secure critical court systems and is currently working to restore impacted services, the Seattle Times first reported.

“In an abundance of caution, we proactively took down our systems to secure them and are working around the clock with leading experts to restore services as quickly as possible,” AOC associate director Wendy Ferrell said.

While some municipal and district courts, like the ones in Bainbridge Island, Monroe, Puyallup, Milton, and Thurston County, are operating with limited services, the Pierce County Superior Court Clerk’s Office—which is also working on restoring services—has announced that online access is still available as the impact on its systems and operations is limited.

“The Pierce County Clerk of Superior Court’s Office is experiencing service interruptions due to unauthorized activity detected on the Washington Courts network,” the Pierce County Clerk of Superior Court said. “The Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) has taken immediate action to secure critical systems and is actively working to safely restore services.”

Essential court functions and most proceedings are expected to proceed as scheduled with minimal interruption. Customer service counters are also open, although visitors are advised to call ahead to confirm service availability.

However, until the Pierce County courts restore all affected services to normal operation, balance information regarding judgments/fines that are owed and some electronic court record searches are temporarily unavailable.

Pierce County Clerk of Superior Court added that “service modifications will remain in effect throughout this week” while it works “to maintain essential services while protecting the integrity of court records and systems.”

One year ago, the Kansas Courts Authority confirmed hackers stole sensitive files with confidential information from its systems after its network was breached in mid-October 2023 in a cyberattack that presented all the signs of a ransomware attack. However, no ransomware operation has claimed responsibility.

The attack forced the Kansas Judicial Branch to take multiple information systems of state courts across Kansas offline, including the eFiling system used by attorneys to submit case documents, the case management systems used by district and appellate courts for case processing, and the electronic payments system.