US federal bankruptcy court operations disrupted by cybersecurity incident

Oct 16 : Several online services supporting US federal courts' bankruptcy systems have gone offline following a cybersecurity incident involving a court contractor, the Administrative Office of the US Courts (AOC) said on Thursday.

BAE Systems IT, a division of the British defense contractor BAE Systems, operates the Bankruptcy Noticing Center's (BNC) systems and websites on behalf of the federal judiciary, the AOC said in a statement.

• BAE is "actively investigating this incident and working to restore operations," the AOC said in the statement.

• A BAE Systems spokesperson said on Friday that the company is "aware of a security incident that is isolated to the BNC system" and has taken immediate steps to address it. BAE Systems is "coordinating closely" with the courts on the response, the spokesperson said.

• All access to the BNC systems and websites BAE operates on behalf of the judiciary and the related bankruptcy noticing process is unavailable, the AOC said.

• The BNC "produces and transmits bankruptcy notices for all federal bankruptcy courts around the country," the AOC said.

• Affected websites include bnc.uscourts.gov, bankruptcynotices.uscourts.gov, notices.uscourts.gov as well as the National Creditor Registration Service.

• The incident also "halted the BNC's production and distribution of bankruptcy notices for bankruptcy courts," the AOC said.