Uh oh... CM/ECF has been hacked. From Politico:
The electronic case filing system used by the federal judiciary has been breached in a sweeping cyber intrusion that is believed to have exposed sensitive court data across multiple U.S. states, according to two people with knowledge of the incident.
The hack, which has not been previously reported, is feared to have compromised the identities of confidential informants involved in criminal cases at multiple federal district courts, said the two people, both of whom were granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the hack.
The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts — which manages the federal court filing system — first determined how serious the issue was around July 4, said the first person. But the office, along with the Justice Department and individual district courts around the country, is still trying to determine the full extent of the incident.
It is not immediately clear who is behind the hack, though nation-state-affiliated actors are widely suspected, the people said. Criminal organizations may also have been involved, they added.
The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts declined to comment. Asked whether it is investigating the incident, the FBI referred POLITICO to the Justice Department. The Justice Department did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
It is not immediately clear how the hackers got in, but the incident is known to affect the judiciary’s federal core case management system, which includes two overlapping components: Case Management/Electronic Case Files, or CM/ECF, which legal professionals use to upload and manage case documents; and PACER, a system that gives the public limited access to the same data.
In addition to records on witnesses and defendants cooperating with law enforcement, the filing system includes other sensitive information potentially of interest to foreign hackers or criminals, such as sealed indictments detailing non-public information about alleged crimes, and arrests and search warrants that criminal suspects could use to evade capture.
8 comments:
The CI thing seems overblown. Are prosecutors filing some sort of secret doc telling judges who their informants are? Nah. So they are theorizing that the sealed documents all relate to informants identities when we all know most sealed documents are from prosecutors overreacting to some obscure federal law that prohibits the public disclosure of a witness’s shoe size. Come on. And who hacked Cmecf. North Korea? Did the great leader say “I need to see those proposed jury instructions David Markus files in all those cases he wins?” Like how can you monetize tens of thousands of orders denying motions to suppress? Or are they looking for the financial data for all those payments of $100 special assessments? It’s probably a disgruntled group of comp sci college seniors who didn’t get into the law school of their choice.
I thought Rumpole practiced in federal court as well as state court. I guess not. His comment is one of the most ignorant I’ve ever seen. And civil cases are implicated too, particularly in the multi-billion dollar IP realm. The North Korea hack was last year. This one is different.
Omg ! I completely ignored the ability of the hackers to get access to the eleven trillion discovery motions , objections to the interrogatories, motions to compel with sanctions, reply to motions to compel seeking sanctions for the improper motion to compel, and on and on that support the billings of hundreds of civil law firms throughout the country. Oh my goodness now the hackers have that! Whatever are we going to do? Maybe shut the country down for a month Covid like while we all cower in a corner waiting for a hacker to post that in a lawsuit the defendant answered an interrogatory thusly “we object to interrogatory four as being irrelevant, immaterial, harassing, burdensome, and seeking potentially privileged material, but in the unlikely event the objections are overruled the car was a Blue Tesla model Y purchased in 2023.” This could be just awful. Oh my oh my.
Pacer should be open to all without login and free. These are public court dockets.
You’re honor, I am not a cat.
If people get copies of my Noa im screwed. Mine has such personality. Zing. Pizzaz ! Damn
Yes, feed the whole thing to ChatGPT.
Russia Is Suspected to Be Behind Breach of Federal Court Filing System
Federal officials are scrambling to assess the damage and address flaws in a sprawling, heavily used computer system long known to have vulnerabilities. NY Times.
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