Judicial Branch

• Citation: Vol. 93 No. 2 Pg. 27
• Publication year: 2024
• Pages: 27

Judicial Branch 93 J. Kan. Bar Assn 2, 27 (2024) Kansas Bar Journal April 2024

Judicial Branch Systems Returning From Cyberattack Stronger

By Chief Justice Marla Luckert, Kansas Supreme Court

As most of you are keenly aware, in the early hours of Oct. 12, 2023, affiliates of a Russian-based ransomware group infiltrated Kansas judicial branch computer systems, necessitating a statewide shutdown of electronic filing and case management systems.

My intent is to use this space to answer frequently asked questions about this cybersecurity incident, but I begin by expressing my gratitude to attorneys and their staff whose day-to-day lives and practices were impacted. Thank you for your understanding early on as we worked to assess a rapidly unfolding situation. Thank you for your good humor as we were forced to revert to old-school paper filing methods. And thank you for your ongoing patience as we worked to harden our systems and bring them back online safely. Your hard work and grace these past several months are a credit to the Kansas bar and the ideals of justice we all serve.

Because you were directly impacted by the incident, it's understandable you would want to know what happened and what the judicial branch is doing to keep it from happening again. During the first hours and days immediately following the incident, we were engaged in a full-scale, all-hands-on-deck effort to investigate what happened, secure our systems, and restore operations. We did not want to provide information that had not been vetted and confirmed as we worked through that process. There is information we still cannot disclose in great specificity because of ongoing security concerns.

'' ...while no security method is foolproof, we hope these measures will make it much harder for bad actors to disrupt...