The Los Angeles Superior Court, the largest trial court in the United States, experienced a significant disruption after a ransomware attack on July 19, 2024. This cyberattack led to the shutdown of all 36 courthouse locations and disabled key systems, including the court’s public website, internal case management system, electronic filing system, and call center. The attack prompted immediate action from the court’s IT team, who disabled the network to prevent further damage (Law.com) (Law.com) (JURISTnews).
Details of the Attack:
- The ransomware was detected early on a Friday, and the court systems were taken offline through the weekend to contain the breach.
- Court officials coordinated with local and federal agencies, including the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, to investigate the incident and work on restoring the systems.
- Enhanced cybersecurity measures recently implemented by the court helped detect the attack promptly. Despite these measures, the breach managed to cause a temporary halt in operations (Law.com) (JURISTnews).
Impact and Response:
- The court’s internal and external functionalities were significantly affected, leading to the closure of all courthouses for at least one day.
- As of the latest updates, there is no evidence that sensitive data has been compromised. The court is gradually restoring operations, but officials noted that there might be limited functionality as IT professionals continue their work.
- The court confirmed that this ransomware attack was not related to the global outages caused by a CrowdStrike software update around the same time (Law.com) (JURISTnews).
