Tag Archive for: Kansas

Kansas court system nears ransomware recovery completion

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Total recovery from a Russian ransomware attack in October at Kansas’ court system was noted to be imminent by state Supreme Court Chief Justice Marla Luckert following this week’s restoration of its case management system and free public portal for electronic court records, according to The Record, a news site by cybersecurity firm Recorded Future.

While electronic filing is expected to be completely restored during the next two weeks, more advanced defenses have already been set in place to expedite recovery of systems that could be impacted by a future ransomware attack, said Luckert during a State of the Judiciary speech before the state legislature. Luckert also emphasized that ransomware recovery efforts were not accelerated to ensure the safety of its citizens after confirming claims that data had been stolen from its systems.

“As these and other details emerged, it became clear we needed to implement alternative business practices to keep courts running. Courts across the state reverted to old school methods, including paper filings. We communicated to the public about how we used the paper environment,” said Luckert.

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‘It’s not ideal’: Kansas lawmakers talk security incident that took down online court access

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TOPEKA — A dragon spitting fire at the Kansas statehouse, depicted in a Vincent Van Goh style, illuminated the possibilities of Artificial Intelligence to lawmakers during a Wednesday meeting.

An overview of AI creative designs provided some levity before legislators turned to discussion of the state’s changing internet landscape — one that IT officials have repeatedly warned needs to be better secured.

“I’d like to improve our ability to respond and recover from cyber incidents, including testing, tracking and training for known unlikely eventualities,” said Michael Murphy, security engineer with the Kansas Legislative Office of Information Technology.

Murphy said he and other legislative IT staff would look into system security upgrades and improvements before the upcoming legislative session.

“The first priority right now is security awareness training,” Murphy said. “Like I said, the biggest point of failure is going to be the people. So we need to make sure everybody’s trained up on how to do things properly.”

The renewed discussion on internet security comes after a “security incident” that shut down online operations for most of the state’s courts. Kansas’ judicial branch publicly announced the issue on Oct. 12, later indicating that clerks in 104 counties were unable to receive online filings. The Johnson County District Court, which operates its own e-filing and case management system separately from the state, is the only state district court not affected.

While courts are still operating, all filings have to be submitted in paper. The investigation into the incident is ongoing, with little information publicly released.

“We also have to figure out how to stop these bad actors from doing things that screw everything up, like they’ve done in judiciary,” said committee lawmaker Rep. Barb Wasinger, R-Hays, before lawmakers withdrew to speak privately about judiciary IT security during an executive session.

Though last year’s risk assessment of the state’s court system has been earmarked as confidential, previous audits of several state agencies have shown several weaknesses. A cybersecurity…

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A security problem has taken down computer systems for almost all Kansas courts

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TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Computer systems for almost all of Kansas’ courts have been offline for five days because of what officials call a “security incident,” preventing them from accepting electronic filings and blocking public access to many of their records.

Judicial branch officials still don’t know the extent of the problem or how long the computer systems will remain offline, spokesperson Lisa Taylor said Tuesday. The problem, discovered Thursday, meant the systems haven’t been able to accept electronic filings, process payments, manage cases, grant public access to records, allow people to file electronically for protection-from-abuse orders and permit people to apply electronically for marriage licenses.

Divorced parents who are supposed to receive child support from their ex-spouses are likely to see delays in the processing of their payments, the state Department for Children and Families also announced Tuesday.

The problems don’t affect courts in Johnson County in the Kansas City area, the state’s most populous county, because it operates its own computer systems. But state Supreme Court Chief Justice Marla Luckert last week directed the courts in the state’s 104 other counties to accept paper filings and filings by fax or mail, suspending a requirement that attorneys file electronically.

Wisconsin’s court system reported an attack by hackers in March, a cybersecurity threat briefly forced Alaska’s courts offline in 2021, and Texas’ top criminal and civil courts were hit with a ransomware attack in 2020. The International Criminal Court also reported what it called a “cybersecurity incident” in September.

But Taylor said Kansas court officials do not yet know whether its “security incident” was a malicious attack.

“It’s not just one system. It’s multiple systems that are all interconnected,” she said. “We’ve got the electronic filing, which is separate from the case management system, yet they they are connected in some way.”

Because courts have in recent years been keeping only digital copies of many records, those records won’t be accessible to the public with computer systems down, Taylor said.

A joint legislative committee that examines state…

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Alleged ransomware attack disrupts Kansas courts

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Kansas had its court systems impacted by outages last week, which Judge Philip Journey of Sedgwick County attributed to a ransomware attack although no further details regarding the intrusion have been provided, according to The Record, a news site by cybersecurity firm Recorded Future.

Several issues affecting the state’s e-filing system, protection order portal, appellate case system, attorney state registry, district court public access portal, case management system, and online marriage license application system were initially discovered on Oct. 12, said the Supreme Court, which has been continuing operations with the temporary use of paper records.

“We continue to serve our communities, but we are using different methods until our systems are restored,” said Chief Justice Marla Luckert, who added that an investigation into the incident is already underway.

Such an attack comes after the Regional Justice Information System leveraged by Kansas, Illinois, and Missouri counties was reported to be taken down by a cyberattack last month.

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