Kansas court system down nearly 2 weeks in 'security incident' that has hallmarks of ransomware
Kansas officials are calling a massive computer outage that’s kept most of the state’s courts offline for two weeks a “security incident.”
TOPEKA, Kan. — Kansas officials are calling a massive computer outage that’s kept most of the state’s courts offline for two weeks a “security incident” and, while they had not provided an explanation as of Wednesday, experts say it has all the hallmarks of a ransomware attack.
The disruption has left attorneys unable to search online records and forced them to file motions the old fashioned way — on paper. Courts are limping along, although the growing piles of paper are a mess that will have to be sorted and scanned eventually.
“It's really just slowed the whole system down," said Chris Joseph, a Lawrence-based criminal defense attorney.
Since 2019, ransomware groups have targeted 18 state, city or municipal court systems, said analyst Allan Liska of the cybersecurity firm Recorded Future. That includes one in Dallas, where some jury trials had to be canceled this year.
But state-focused attacks have been much less frequent, and have not yet rivaled what is happening in Kansas.
“We are treating this matter with the highest priority,” Lisa Taylor, the Judicial Branch's spokesperson, said in an email Wednesday.
Liska noted Tuesday that a short-lived attack in 2019 in Georgia shut down some court websites and forced some court dates to be rescheduled. A cybersecurity threat forced Alaska’s courts offline for about a week in 2021. Texas’ top criminal and civil courts were hit with a ransomware attack in 2020 but the filing system remained operational and trial courts weren't affected.
In Kansas, the first sign of trouble came on Oct. 12 when the state's Judicial Branch announced a
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