Cyber Incident Victim: Pennsylvania Courts

On Sunday night, portions of the Pennsylvania Courts' official website became inaccessible to the public due to a denial-of-service (DoS) cyberattack. This type of attack functions by overwhelming the target network with a flood of traffic, rendering it unable to respond to legitimate user requests or causing it to crash entirely. The incident directly impacted several critical court web services, including PACFile, the system for online docket sheets, the PAePay payment portal, and the Guardianship Tracking System. Despite the disruption to these online platforms, a formal statement from the courts explicitly confirmed that there was no indication any court data had been compromised during the event. Furthermore, the statement assured the public that physical court operations would continue uninterrupted, meaning the courts themselves remained open and accessible for in-person business. The initial detection of the attack was evidenced by the widespread website downtime experienced by users attempting to access the affected services.

In immediate response to the service disruption, the courts' information technology and executive teams initiated an investigation into the cyberattack. This investigation is being conducted in close coordination with multiple federal law enforcement and cybersecurity agencies, specifically including the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Chief Justice of Pennsylvania Debra Todd publicly communicated the incident and the ongoing response, reiterating the key points that no data breach had been identified and that court facilities would maintain normal operations. The collaborative effort with these external agencies signifies the seriousness with which the incident is being treated and aims to determine the attack's origin, scope, and responsible parties. While the online systems remained down following the attack, the primary focus remained on restoring service and completing the forensic investigation with federal partners. The incident highlights the vulnerability of public-facing government portals to disruptive attacks that impede citizen access to essential judicial resources without necessarily exposing sensitive information.