U.S. investigators have found evidence that Russia was at least partly behind a breach of the electronic case filing system used by U.S. federal courts, The New York Times reported on August 12, citing sources.
The breach, disclosed in early August, targeted a system that holds, among other things, confidential materials identifying informants in criminal cases and defendants accused of crimes against national security.
According to the NYT, the hackers appeared interested in criminal cases in New York and several other cities; in some instances, the case documents mentioned people with Russian and Eastern European surnames.
Court system administrators recently told the Justice Department and the chief judges of federal courts that “sophisticated cyber threat actors” had compromised secure records. They urged officials to remove sensitive documents from the system as quickly as possible. Politico reported that the attacks began in early July.
It remains unclear which specific organization was behind the breach or whether other countries were involved.