The Justice Department is investigating a data breach of the U.S. federal court system from early 2020 that a high-ranking federal official said Thursday is “one of the most significant threats” to national security.
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House Judiciary Committee Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) told lawmakers Thursday that the document management system known as PACER CM/ECF, short for Public Access to Court Electronic Records and Case Management/Electronic Case Files, experienced a “system security failure” that was first learned by the committee in March.
Nadler noted the breach was unrelated to the SolarWinds hack from late 2020, though it appears to go beyond the cyberattack by Russian government-backed hackers who infiltrated several U.S. federal agencies, including federal court systems.
Assistant Attorney General for the DOJ’s National Security Division Matthew Olsen testified on Capitol Hill, saying that the NSD is “working very closely with the judicial conference and judges around the country to address this issue” and adding it would give regular updates to the committee about the progress of the investigation.
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“The threat we face from cyber-enabled attacks, whether that’s to the government and public sector, including Congress, or to the private sector, is one of the most significant threats we face as a country to our national security,” Olsen told the committee.
Nadler argued an “even more concerning and disturbing” result of the hack could be the impact on pending civil and criminal litigation, questioning Olsen on whether the breach had affected any cases that were currently under the NSD’s scope.
Olsen said there was not “anything in particular” he could name that had been “materially impacted, prolonged, or dismissed” because of the court system breach, though he did say the division is focused on attacks waged from outside nations and provided examples, such as Iran, North Korea, Russia, and China.
“I can’t speak directly to the nature of the ongoing investigation of the types of threats that you’ve mentioned regarding the effort to compromise public judicial dockets. This is, of course, a significant concern for us, given the nature of the information that is often held by the courts,” Olsen said.
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In an effort to keep confidential records secure and mitigate attacks from “sophisticated nation-states that seek to obtain persistent access to these systems,” Olsen said, the DOJ announced in January that sensitive court documents should be submitted to federal courts using a thumb drive or compact disc to ensure safe and compromised storage.
Olsen also noted the new safety practice wouldn’t change current policies regarding public access to court records because sealed records are already confidential and unavailable to the public.
