Ride the Lightning

SolarWinds Hack Compromises U.S. Electronic Court Filings

January 11, 2021

Bloomberg reported on January 6 that the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts has said that the U.S. federal judiciary's electronic filing and case management system suffered an "apparent compromise" during the hack of SolarWinds Orion products.

The federal courts are working with the Department of Homeland Security on an audit of the system, AO director James Duff said in a memo distributed to federal courts. The federal courts "suspended all national and local use" of the Orion IT tool after the Department of Homeland Security issued a directive about the breach in December, according to an AO statement.

Moving forward, "highly sensitive documents" will have to be submitted to the courts on paper or on a secure electronic device. Each court will make its own determination about which documents are highly sensitive.

The Eastern District of Virginia issued an announcement on January 7 instructing practitioners to "not electronically file anything in CM/ECF under seal until you receive further instruction from this Court."

What's old is new again – we're largely back to paper.

Federal intelligence agencies have concluded that the SolarWinds hack was almost certainly carried out by Russia.

Sharon D. Nelson, Esq., President, Sensei Enterprises, Inc.
3975 University Drive, Suite 225|Fairfax, VA 22030
Email: Phone: 703-359-0700
Digital Forensics/Cybersecurity/Information Technology
https://senseient.com
https://twitter.com/sharonnelsonesq
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sharondnelson
https://amazon.com/author/sharonnelson