A federal judge has warned lawmakers that the nation’s court system is under constant attack by sophisticated hackers. The judge overseeing efforts to modernize electronic case filing technology for U.S. courts testified before a congressional committee. Michael Scudder told the House Judiciary Committee that about 200 million harmful cyber events were recently prevented. He said the Judiciary has had to respond to waves of highly sophisticated and very persistent cyber threats.
The court system allows judges and lawyers to file court documents electronically through its Public Access to Court Records platform. Many of those documents are sealed, including indictments, the names of cooperating witnesses, and also arrest warrants. Sealed documents also include national security information and important evidence with a “proprietary economic value” to many people. The judge testified that PACER is “unsustainable due to cyber risks” and it must be replaced with a more modern system.
This problem with the court’s electronic filing system is not a new one, according to all of the reports. In July 2022, a top Justice Department official told the House Judiciary Committee about a significant security hack. During that hearing, the committee chair revealed that three “hostile foreign actors” had attacked the PACER system. The Justice Department is now requesting an allocation of seventy-four million dollars in the fiscal year 2026 budget.
Congress has already provided some funding to bolster the court system’s overall cybersecurity posture and its digital defenses. Judge Scudder said this has enabled “substantial progress,” including through the implementation of multifactor authentication security measures. The courts have also used the allocated funds to strengthen their network monitoring and their different activity logging tools. The committee is working closely with the DOJ’s National Security Division and FBI cyber experts to strengthen its defenses.
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