The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts said in an October 15 statement that a cyberattack on British multinational defense contractor BAE Systems has disrupted the processing and distribution of bankruptcy notices across all U.S. federal bankruptcy courts.
The incident affected the Bankruptcy Noticing Center, which BAE operates on behalf of the federal judiciary. The outage began October 9 and has halted electronic and paper notices, while taking several court websites and the National Creditor Registration Service offline. BAE is investigating and working to restore services.
John Strand, Owner, Black Hills Information Security:
“This story highlights how unbelievably interconnected business and government processes actually are. A lot of people still think about computer security in terms of a DMZ. There’s an internal network to protect and an outside world to protect it from.
“But look at any modern large organization. They have multiple SaaS platforms, third-party integrations, and customer data flowing in and out of systems they don’t own or control. That perimeter is a lot messier than people want to believe.
“I still don’t think the industry has caught up with the risks we introduced through cloud computing and SaaS. Now we’re adding AI to the mix, giving attackers new ways to target those services and exploit the connections between them. We weren’t caught up before. We’re certainly not ready now.”
Jacob Krell, Senior Director: Secure AI Solutions & Cybersecurity, Suzu Labs:
“Bankruptcy notices are the machinery of due process, and the judiciary runs all of it through one contractor. The Section 341 meeting notice opens the window for creditor claims, deadlines attach to service of every order, and since October 9 those clocks have been frozen nationwide while BAE Systems investigates a cyber incident that took the Bankruptcy Noticing Center offline.
“Judges are already compensating, extending deadlines and continuing hearings district by district. That is the detail that should worry anyone procuring for the courts. The outage never touched a courtroom, yet it rewrote the calendar of every bankruptcy case in the country, because a vendor bought like routine IT has become load-bearing infrastructure for the justice system.
“Restoring service is the urgent job. The standing question is why the noticing architecture has no alternate path, and I would want the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts to write continuity requirements into the next BAE contract as strict as the ones the courts impose on themselves.”
You are only as secure as your business partners. Thus you need to ensure that they are secure before you trust them completely. Otherwise you’re just asking for trouble.
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This entry was posted on October 18, 2026 at 10:34 am and is filed under Commentary with tags USA. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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Cyberattack on defense contractor BAE causes nationwide havoc
The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts said in an October 15 statement that a cyberattack on British multinational defense contractor BAE Systems has disrupted the processing and distribution of bankruptcy notices across all U.S. federal bankruptcy courts.
The incident affected the Bankruptcy Noticing Center, which BAE operates on behalf of the federal judiciary. The outage began October 9 and has halted electronic and paper notices, while taking several court websites and the National Creditor Registration Service offline. BAE is investigating and working to restore services.
John Strand, Owner, Black Hills Information Security:
“This story highlights how unbelievably interconnected business and government processes actually are. A lot of people still think about computer security in terms of a DMZ. There’s an internal network to protect and an outside world to protect it from.
“But look at any modern large organization. They have multiple SaaS platforms, third-party integrations, and customer data flowing in and out of systems they don’t own or control. That perimeter is a lot messier than people want to believe.
“I still don’t think the industry has caught up with the risks we introduced through cloud computing and SaaS. Now we’re adding AI to the mix, giving attackers new ways to target those services and exploit the connections between them. We weren’t caught up before. We’re certainly not ready now.”
Jacob Krell, Senior Director: Secure AI Solutions & Cybersecurity, Suzu Labs:
“Bankruptcy notices are the machinery of due process, and the judiciary runs all of it through one contractor. The Section 341 meeting notice opens the window for creditor claims, deadlines attach to service of every order, and since October 9 those clocks have been frozen nationwide while BAE Systems investigates a cyber incident that took the Bankruptcy Noticing Center offline.
“Judges are already compensating, extending deadlines and continuing hearings district by district. That is the detail that should worry anyone procuring for the courts. The outage never touched a courtroom, yet it rewrote the calendar of every bankruptcy case in the country, because a vendor bought like routine IT has become load-bearing infrastructure for the justice system.
“Restoring service is the urgent job. The standing question is why the noticing architecture has no alternate path, and I would want the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts to write continuity requirements into the next BAE contract as strict as the ones the courts impose on themselves.”
You are only as secure as your business partners. Thus you need to ensure that they are secure before you trust them completely. Otherwise you’re just asking for trouble.
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This entry was posted on October 18, 2026 at 10:34 am and is filed under Commentary with tags USA. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.