Contractor cyberattack halts bankruptcy notices across all US federal courts

A cyberattack on defense and government contractor BAE Systems has disrupted the Bankruptcy Noticing Center (BNC), the service that produces and transmits bankruptcy notices for every federal bankruptcy court in the United States, The Record reported on October 15. According to the publication, the incident has halted all production of bankruptcy notices, affecting a system that debtors, creditors and lawyers rely on to learn about filings and deadlines.

What happened

The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts (AO) said it was in contact with the affected courts and coordinating with BAE, according to The Record. The AO said BAE "is actively investigating this incident and working to restore operations." A BAE spokesperson told the outlet that the company is aware of a security incident "isolated to the BNC system" and has taken immediate steps to address it, adding that it is "coordinating closely" with the AO.

Per the AO, the following services are unavailable: bnc.uscourts.gov, bankruptcynotices.uscourts.gov, notices.uscourts.gov and the National Creditor Registration Service.

What is still unknown

The AO did not respond to The Record's questions about the nature of the incident or whether any data was stolen. CISA referred questions to the U.S. Courts, and the FBI did not respond to a request for comment. No threat actor has been named, and there is no public timeline for restoring the BNC. Readers should treat any claims about ransomware or data theft as unconfirmed until officials or BAE provide details.

Why it matters

The Record noted that BAE is one of the world's largest defense contractors and provides aerospace, weapons and information security services to several federal departments. The incident adds to a series of attacks on the U.S. judicial system and its suppliers. According to the outlet, Arizona's state court system was breached weeks earlier, exposing information on more than 1.3 million people; the federal courts' PACER case filing system was previously hacked amid fears that confidential informant identities were exposed; and the federal docketing system was attacked in early 2020. A day before the BNC outage, on October 14, the Department of Transportation confirmed that a safety agency contact center went offline after a contractor was hit by a cyberattack, The Record reported.

What to do

Parties to bankruptcy cases should not assume they will receive notices on time while the BNC is offline and should check case dockets directly or through their counsel. Because outages of this kind often trigger opportunistic fraud, recipients should be cautious of unexpected emails or calls claiming to be court notices, and should verify any payment or document request through official court channels. Organizations that depend on government contractors may also want to review how a supplier outage would affect their own critical notifications.