Security News > 2021 > January > Probe Launched Into Impact of SolarWinds Breach on Federal Courts
An investigation has been launched into the impact of the SolarWinds breach on the computer systems used by federal courts in the United States, which reportedly represented a target of interest to the hackers.
The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts said an investigation was launched in mid-December after the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency issued an emergency directive instructing all federal agencies to immediately analyze their systems for evidence indicating that they may have been targeted through the Orion monitoring tool developed by SolarWinds.
A majority of the documents in the federal court system are available to the public, either for free or a small fee, but sealed filings often contain sensitive information that should not be made public.
The judiciary announced that it has started rolling out additional safeguards to protect sensitive court records - highly sensitive court documents will only be accepted by federal courts on paper or via an electronic device such as a thumb drive, and they will be stored on a secure stand-alone computer rather than the CM/ECF system.
Investigative journalist Brian Krebs said he learned from sources that federal courts were actually "Hit hard" by the SolarWinds breach, with the attackers delivering a piece of malware named Teardrop to its systems.
The potential impact of the SolarWinds hack on federal courts was announced on the same day the U.S. Justice Department announced that it too was hit and the attackers may have accessed some Microsoft 365 email accounts.