Cyberattack takes down some online services for Pennsylvania Court
Portions of the Pennsylvania Courts’ website that had been down since Sunday as a result of a cyberattack appeared to be back in operation Monday afternoon.
A statement released by Chief Justice Debra Todd on Sunday said the attack affected online services such as filing systems, docket sheets, electronic payment methods and a guardianship tracking system.
The FBI, U.S. Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency are investigating.
Todd said the issue was the result of a denial of service cyberattack. In these cases, an internet host or network is flooded with traffic until it can’t respond, according to the cyber security and infrastructure agency.
“Our court information technology and executive team are working closely with law enforcement … to investigate the incident,” she said, adding there is no indication any court data was compromised.
Courts in Pennsylvania remained open to the public during the outage and filings and payments were accepted in person.
— PA Courts (@PACourts) February 5, 2024
Attempts to reach the Pennsylvania Courts website Sunday and early Monday showed an error message, indicating the possibility that the site might be temporarily unavailable or too busy through a connection timeout error message. Monday afternoon, the site said it was undergoing maintenance. By 3 p.m. it appeared the websites were operating as normal.
Cyberattacks on government entities have happened in the area in recent months. Washington County government is recovering from one in late January, according to TribLive news partner WTAE.
Most forms of county government involving a computer were completely shut down as a result of that attack, the news outlet reported. The attack remains under investigation.
In November, Pennsylvania lawmakers asked federal officials to investigate a cyber attack on the Municipal Water Authority of Aliquippa. The lawmakers said in a letter that the attack was led by an Iranian-backed hacker group.
“Any attack on our nation’s critical infrastructure is unacceptable,” the lawmakers wrote in the letter. “If a hack like this can happen here in Western Pennsylvania, it can happen elsewhere in the United States.”
Renatta Signorini is a TribLive reporter covering breaking news, crime, courts and Jeannette. She has been working at the Trib since 2005. She can be reached at rsignorini@triblive.com.
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