Topeka, Kan. — TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas’ court system loses control of cases two months after a foreign cyberattack forced officials to shut down the system along with public access to documents and other systems. began bringing computer systems back online. The branch made the announcement Thursday.
Case management systems for district courts in 28 of the state’s 105 counties will be back online by Monday, with others expected to be back by the end of the week. Online access to documents for the public will then be reinstated, but counties that return online will be able to provide access through courthouse terminals, the Justice Department said.
The court also reinstated a system that allows people to apply for marriage licenses online and to electronically apply for orders to protect against abuse, stalking, and human trafficking.
Seven justices on the Kansas Supreme Court, which oversees the administration of the state’s courts, said last month that the judicial branch was the victim of a “sophisticated foreign cyberattack.” The judges said the criminals stole the data and threatened to post it on a dark website “if their demands were not met”.
But judicial officials have not disclosed the hackers’ demands, whether a ransom was paid, or how much the state has spent to restore judicial systems. Asked Thursday about the ransom, Justice Department spokeswoman Lisa Taylor referred to a statement from last month.
“Restoring the district court case management system is a long-awaited milestone in the recovery plan, but there is still much work to be done,” Chief Justice Mara Ruckert said in a statement Thursday.
The outages affected courthouses in 104 counties, excluding Johnson County in the Kansas City area, the state’s most populous area. Johnson County has its own system and is not scheduled to join the state system until next year.
The judiciary initially described the attack as a “security incident,” but cybersecurity experts say it was a ransomware attack, including that court officials have provided few details about what happened. He said that it has the following characteristics.
Extended power outages have forced courthouses in affected counties to revert to paper filings. Judiciary officials acknowledged that it could take weeks for courts to electronically record all filings since the Oct. 12 shutdown.
The state appellate courts and Supreme Court’s electronic filing and case management systems will be brought back online after the district court proceedings conclude.
The state court system risk assessment issued in February 2022, like the one issued in June 2020, is “permanently confidential” under state law.
Last month, state Rep. Kyle Hoffman, chairman of the Assembly Information Technology Committee, told reporters after the meeting that the 2020 audit results were dire, but he did not provide further details. He said the 2022 audit showed a number of improvements, again without providing details.
Two recent audits of other state agencies identified cybersecurity weaknesses. The most recent report, released in July, said that “agency leaders either do not recognize their IT security responsibilities or do not prioritize them enough.”