The federal courts’ documentation system was hit by a breach of “surprising breadth and scope” in early 2020, saying: a report of Politics that cites testimony from House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler. The Department of Justice (DOJ) reportedly informed the judiciary about the breach in March and told lawmakers that an investigation is underway. Other lawmakers, such as Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), expressed concern that the DOJ had hidden information about the breach and refused to explain it to the public and Congress.
Nadler reportedly said the “system security flaw” was the work of “three hostile foreign actors”, though, according to Reuters DOJ security officials have not specified which countries may be involved.
In early 2021, the federal judicial system announced it would go low-tech for its most sensitive documents, saying they should be delivered by hand rather than through the publicly available Case Management and Electronic Case Files system. At the time, it cited the SolarWinds attack, which gave hackers access to the systems of dozens of companies and government agencies, as the reason for the policy change. While the SolarWinds attack is also believed to have started in early 2020, the breach disclosed by Nadler is reportedly a separate incident.
At this time, details of what the attackers had access to or how they managed to get into the judiciary’s systems are not publicly available. It is also unclear when the attack was discovered by DOJ officials. The Justice Department’s National Security Division did not immediately respond to… The edge‘s request for comment about the hack and the ensuing investigation.