US Bankruptcy Notice System Restored After Cyberattack, Contractor Says No Data Was Stolen

The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts and its IT contractor, BAE Systems, say the Bankruptcy Noticing Center (BNC) is returning to service after a cyberattack announced on October 22. The BNC produces and sends bankruptcy notices for all federal bankruptcy courts. The attack halted that work, and websites BAE runs for the judiciary, including the National Creditor Registration Service, went offline.

A BAE Systems spokesperson told Recorded Future News: "No other systems were affected. No data was extracted. There was no breach of any PII." No hacker group has claimed responsibility. Court officials declared a "Bankruptcy Rules emergency", which lets judges extend deadlines and issue orders to work around the outage. It lasts 90 days through January 2027 unless officials end it sooner, and the court expects it to stay necessary while services are restored.

On Monday, officials said the BNC will begin working through a backlog of court data dating back to October 7, as well as new submissions. Paper notices will be released in prioritised waves based on production capacity and mailing readiness. Paper notices created between October 13 and Monday will carry a warning that they were sent late because of the attack.

The episode shows how an attack on one supplier can disrupt an entire system that depends on it.