Washington Courts Network Outage

In early November of 2024, the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) announced it had identified unauthorized activity on the Washington Courts network and had taken immediate action to secure critical systems and were working to safely restore service.

The AOC was first alerted to potential malware on an end user's computer equipment on October 29, 2024 at which time AOC's primary virus detection software reported that the malware had been contained.

AOC heightened monitoring of the Washington Courts network and became aware that the malware had not actually been contained as reported, and that unauthorized activity continued to be observed.

Based on the serious threat to the Washington Courts network and in consultation with the Chair of the Judicial Information Systems Committee, AOC made the difficult decision to shut down the Judicial Information System and completely isolate the Washington Courts network from the internet. The shutdown occurred on November 1, 2024.

AOC engaged a leading cyber security vendor to assist in containment and forensic analysis. Over the course of two weeks, AOC staff worked to rebuild key components of the Washington Courts network in a secure and sterile environment. During this time, significant measures were implemented to harden the network and improve overall security in all facets of operations.

On November 18, 2024, most JIS applications were restored and were again available for use by the courts and AOC's justice partners.

Forensic analysis revealed that this was not a targeted attack as the original malware infection came from a site not related to the State of Washington nor any courts. Quick actions of AOC thwarted a "probable" ransomware or data exfiltration attack, and we can confirm that there is no evidence court or personal data was accessed, altered, or removed from the Washington Courts network.

AOC expects that recovery and restoration efforts will continue at least through the end of 2024 as significant work remains to be accomplished in order to fully restore all services, including access to the Appellate Court Document Portal.

Stay tuned to this website for additional updates.