Washington state courts’ online system is back up; now Clark County will have to deal with the backlog

The Washington courts online systems were up and running again Monday after being offline for two weeks after “unauthorized activity” was detected in the network.

The online system had been down since Nov. 3; the investigation continues.

“We can confirm that there was no detected breach of data, and the event did not result in ransomware, due to quick action taken to isolate and secure the network,” according to an update on the Administrative Office of the Courts website.

“As we continue to bring up the system, it is anticipated that there will be intermittent disruptions as the network and its applications are highly interconnected and operating in a new technical environment,” the website says. “To help minimize disruptions, the Blake Refund Bureau, the Appellate Court Document Portal and e-filing for appellate courts will continue to be offline until the network is stable.”

The two-week outages affected most superior and district courts across the state.

The completion of gun purchases has been held up since Nov. 1, prompting gun rights groups to threaten a lawsuit, according to reporting by Washington State Standard.

Local courts, including Clark County District Court and some city municipal courts, issued emergency orders, allowing them to extend the time to file some cases and hold some hearings.

Some records were unavailable, including anything that required a case number to be looked up.

Courts are also unable to see state database information, such as criminal histories, warrant histories and Department of Licensing information, according to one of the Clark County emergency orders.

With the network restored, staff will have to catch up on the backlog of paperwork and reschedule hearings that were postponed, District Court Administrator Bryan Farrell said.

“However, we already have agency-wide plans in place to address this when systems are restored and will receive reimbursement from the state for expenditures relating to the backlog,” he said last week..