Federal bankruptcy courts across the United States cannot send notices through the Bankruptcy Notice Center (BNC) for one week. The outage follows a cyber security incident that affected BAE Systems’ central processing infrastructure.
BNC handles filings for every federal bankruptcy court in the country, and BAE acts as a contractor for bankruptcy courts. On Thursday, the Administrative Office of the United States Court said that because of the incident, the center no longer creates or sends notices.
“Due to the incident, access to the BNC system and all websites operated by BAE on behalf of the judiciary and the related bankruptcy notification process is unavailable at this time,” said.
One of the affected services is the National Creditor Registration Service. While it is offline, users of the court’s electronic filing system cannot create a mailing list of creditors they use to serve documents.
according to The United States Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Texas, BAE told the administrative office about the problem late October 9. The interruption occurred in both BAE’s notification system and the BNC website.
Several bankruptcy courts issued notices on Oct. 13, called service interruptions or suspensions. None of them mention cyber security incidents.
The administration office said it is contacting the affected courts and coordinating with BAE. The company is investigating the incident and working to restore systems.
BAE Systems spokesman said Safety week that the company “is aware of an isolated security incident with the BNC system.” A spokesman said BAE responded immediately and was working closely with the administration’s office.
Neither the jury nor BAE said what caused the incident, whether it was a cyber attack, or what data was compromised. Safety week BAE was approached with questions about these points, but the company’s statement did not address them.
The court warned that the electronic notice issued by the center since October 9 has not been sent. Electronic filing notices to registered US attorneys, trustees and trustees are also going out. The court continues to accept filings and open new cases.
The court said that there is no estimated date when the service will be restored.
* Updated with statement from BAE to SecurityWeek
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