22 November 2023
WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) — The Supreme Court security incident on Oct. 12 has been confirmed as a cyber security attack.
The attack is impacting all Kansas counties except for Johnson County, which has never used the online court database called Odyssey.
For more than five weeks, courts have been unable to retrieve online records. The Supreme Court says personal information has likely been breached.
Sedgwick County District Attorney Marc Bennett says anyone who has done business with the court, like paying traffic tickets or child support, has a chance that their data was compromised. While the courts are working to identify who had data accessed, people are encouraged to keep a close eye on their accounts.
“If you’ve gotten a security update from your bank or Best Buy or something you’ve done business with and they say we’ve had a security breach, you should be paying attention to your bank accounts, you should be paying attention to your personal information online,” explained Bennett.
The Supreme Court says their preliminary review finds district court case records on appeal were among those stolen.
However, the security attack is impacting more than just the courts. Case calendars, civil judgment payments and child support payments are some of the many things that people are unable to access records online.
“There’s a whole host of things that the court system monitors and handles that are not operational at the moment.,” said Bennett.
One of those is court data that allows title companies to do title checks before house closings.
“The longer this extends, the more of a burden that it’s going to create,” said Carly Grit, General Council for Kansas Secure Title. “Our underwriters have allowed us to use an affidavit moving forward. It just says that there are no court cases out there that the title company is not already aware of.”
Many counties are using paper filing systems to keep track of cases after Oct. 12, but the title company cannot access that information.
“Say it goes even longer for another three or four months. There’s even more court cases that we have no idea about,” explained Grit.
There is a terminal in Topeka with computers where people can view records from before the security attack. Aside from it difficult to access for people outside Topeka, there is also limited time and space.
“You have to set up an appointment online stating what times you want to go there, but we have not had any luck setting up an appointment,” said Grit.
Bennett says this is a monumental issue for multiple agencies and individuals across the state. However, he doesn’t anticipate it being resolved anytime soon.
“I know counties around the state are really struggling to keep up, I think this will take months probably to resolve,” he said.