SEATTLE — Washington state courts’ online systems remain down over a week after officials detected “unauthorized activity” on the network, but state officials are hopeful the systems could be restored next week.
The Administrative Office of the Courts proactively took down the network Nov. 4 after identifying the activity “out of an abundance of caution,” spokesperson Wendy Ferrell said. King County Superior Court is not affected by the outage because the court has its own case management system separate from the state’s.
The King County District Court, on the other hand, issued an emergency administrative order Monday due to the outage. The Washington Supreme Court also filed an emergency order Friday.
On Wednesday, Ferrell said there’s no indication any court or personal data has been accessed, altered or removed. Ferrell said there is “no reason to believe” the outage was due to a ransomware attack.
Ferrell also said Wednesday afternoon that the office is “cautiously optimistic” services will be restored next week.
“Good progress is being made, but it is extremely time consuming to bring the systems back up in a secure environment due to the complexity and interconnectivity of the networks,” Ferrell said in an email Wednesday.
Because Washington does not have an entirely unified court system, impacts on operations vary by court. Due to the interconnectivity of the network, all systems will be restored simultaneously, Ferrell said.
The Administrative Office of the Courts worked with the Washington State Bar Association to create a website to house all emergency orders of the courts at wsba.org/courts. As of Wednesday night, nearly 50 emergency orders had been issued by courts around the state.
The King County District Court has its own case management system that is unaffected by the outage, but court employees have limited access to nationwide criminal histories. Not having state databases might interfere with the court’s ability to meet deadlines and process filings, according to the emergency order.
The King County District Court will not act on name change hearings; motions to modify protection orders or criminal no contact orders; granting a deferred prosecution; granting a deferred finding on an infraction; or any other motion that can’t be decided without use of a state database.
Most municipal courts were operating under the state emergency order that extends all court rules and policies by 14 days from Wednesday, Nov. 13, or until two days after the state judicial information system is restored.
The Second Amendment Foundation threatened to sue the state Tuesday because there have been delays in conducting background checks for firearm purchases due to the system outage.
