Devastating ransomware attack paralyzes courts in Los Angeles County

The Los Angeles County Superior Court, the nation’s largest court, remained closed Monday as it recovered from a ransomware attack on its systems, officials said.

The attack was discovered Friday and appears to be unrelated to the CrowdStrike software update that crippled Windows computers around the world last week, affecting governments, airlines and other agencies, court officials said in a news release Sunday.

The closure extended to all 36 courthouses in the county and authorities did not expect it to last beyond Monday.

“As the court continues to move quickly toward a recovery and restoration phase, many critical systems have been offline since Sunday evening,” said Presiding Judge Samantha Jessner in the press release. “An additional day will allow the court’s team of experts to focus exclusively on bringing our systems back online so the court can resume operations as quickly, smoothly and safely as possible.”

According to the press release, the court systems affected include the My Jury Duty portal, the court’s website and the court’s case management systems.

A team of consultants, vendors and law enforcement officials are trying to get the systems back up and running, but some were still inaccessible Sunday, officials said.

Court officials did not immediately respond Monday to questions about how the attackers gained control of the systems and whether the district paid a ransom. They also did not respond to questions about whether and what confidential information was disclosed or whether data was lost.