The US federal court system was hit by a major cyber breach in 2020, unrelated to the SolarWinds attack, which a US congressman on Thursday called “critically important and delicate.”
At a House Judiciary Committee hearingChairman Jerrold Nadler, D-NY, noted that the Administrative Office of the Court issued a public statement of the violation on January 6, 2021. However, he said, “Only in March of this year. Only now has the committee learned of the astonishing extent and scope of the court’s Document Management System security flaw, and perhaps even more worrisome is the disturbing impact the security breach has had. open to pending civil and criminal cases, as well as ongoing national security or intelligence matters.”
The breach, Nadler said, “has had lasting effects on the department and other agencies.”
Nadler asked Justice Department official Matt Olsen what type of case, investigation or US attorney’s office was most affected by the breach.
Olsen, Assistant Attorney General for the Department of Justice’s National Security Division, said he could not be forthright about the nature of an ongoing investigation into efforts to compromise agencies. public justice.
“This is, of course, a significant concern for us given the nature of the information typically held by the courts,” he said.
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, said the committee needs to hear from the Justice Department about how many cases were affected and how many were dismissed.
“This is a collection of dangerous situations,” she said.
High volume, Kremlin backing SolarWinds Attack targeted a variety of US entities – nine federal government agencies, including the Department of Treasury and Commerce, as well as 100 private sector organizations. Attackers have infiltrated these organizations in part by insert malware into Orion IT monitoring platform, a product of SolarWinds. The malware was spread through software updates sent to SolarWinds customers between March and June 2020.
