“Unauthorized” network activity violates the Washington court system

(TNS) — Washington state’s online court systems have been down for more than a week after officials discovered “unauthorized activity” on the network, but state officials hope to have the systems back up and running next week.

The Judicial Administrative Service shut down the network early Nov. 4 after discovering the activity “out of an abundance of caution,” spokeswoman Wendy Ferrell said. King County Superior Court was not affected by the outage because the court has its own case management system separate from the state’s.

On Monday, King County Circuit Court issued an emergency administrative order due to the outage. The Washington Supreme Court also issued an emergency order on Friday.

Ferrell said Wednesday that there was no indication that any court or personal data had been accessed, altered or deleted. Ferrell said there was “no reason to believe the crash was due to a ransomware attack.”

Ferrell also said Wednesday afternoon that the office is “cautiously optimistic” that service will be restored next week.

“Good progress has been made, but restoring systems to a secure environment will take an extremely long time due to the complexity and interconnectedness of the networks,” Ferrell said in an email Wednesday.

Because Washington does not have a fully unified court system, the impact on operations varies from court to court. Because of the interconnectedness of the network, all systems will be restored at the same time, Ferrell said.

The Administrative Office of the Courts has worked with the Washington State Bar Association to create a website to post all emergency court orders at wsba.org/courts. As of Wednesday evening, courts across the state had issued nearly 50 emergency orders.

King County Circuit Court has its own case management system, which is unaffected by the outage, but court employees have limited access to nationwide criminal records. The lack of state databases could hamper the court’s ability to meet deadlines and process documents, according to the emergency order.

The King County Circuit Court will not hear a name change hearing; petition to change protective orders or criminal no-contact orders; granting a postponement of prosecution; provision of a delayed conclusion on the violation; or any other movement that cannot be accepted without the use of a government database.

Most municipal courts were operating under an emergency order that extended all court rules and policies for 14 days beginning Wednesday, Nov. 13, or until two days after the state’s court information system is restored.

On Tuesday, the Second Amendment Foundation threatened to sue the state over delays in background checks on firearms purchases due to a system glitch.