Los Angeles Courthouses Close for Ransomware Recovery

The Superior Court of Los Angeles County closed all 36 of its courthouses Monday to let its team focus on recovering from a ransomware attack. Courthouses are expected to re-open Tuesday.

“The court experienced an unprecedented cyber attack on Friday which has resulted in the need to shut down nearly all network systems in order to contain the damage, protect the integrity and confidentiality of information and ensure future network stability and security,” said Presiding Judge Samantha P. Jessner in a press release.
The court first detected ransomware early Friday morning, and the attack has had sweeping impacts.

After it hit, the Superior Court said on X that the attack caused “systemwide connectivity issues” that downed call centers, prevented some matters from being heard and offlined electronic filing systems. At that time, attorneys and litigants with Friday filing deadlines were told to visit clerk’s offices before closing to do so in person. But by Sunday, “many critical systems” were still offline, Jessner said. Those included systems that “span the court’s entire operation,” per the release, like the public-facing court website and MyJuryDuty Portal, as well as the internal case management system.

Because of the ransomware attack, “every electronic platform containing court data was rendered inaccessible as was any device that was connected to the Internet, including the court’s telephone systems,” according to a general order.

The Monday courthouse closures are intended to let court staff, law enforcement, other courts, vendors and consultants continue work on repairing and restarting systems. Given the closures, the Judicial Council of California permitted the Superior Court to extend deadlines by one day for activities such as filing papers with the court, bringing an action to trial and bringing a criminal defendant before a magistrate after arrest.