A cyber attack on BAE Systems’ IT infrastructure and websites serving the Bankruptcy Noticing Center (BNC) has disrupted operations at several federal courts, halting the production and distribution of bankruptcy notices.
BAE Systems designs and manufactures military hardware and software for the US, UK, and other militaries worldwide. Its offerings also include enterprise systems, cloud infrastructure, and cybersecurity solutions for military, intelligence, and civilian applications.
The company operates BNC systems and websites on behalf of the Federal Judiciary and transmits bankruptcy notices for all federal bankruptcy courts.
BAE cyber attack shut down numerous Federal Judiciary systems
According to a cyber incident notice posted on the United States Courts website, access to all BAE-operated systems serving bnc.uscourts.gov, bankruptcynotices.uscourts.gov, notices.uscourts.gov, and the National Creditor Registration Service became unavailable as a result of the cyber attack.
“As a result of the incident, all access to the BNC systems and websites that BAE operates on behalf of the judiciary and the related bankruptcy noticing process are unavailable,” the third-party defense contractor stated.
According to a public notice published by the Bankruptcy Court of the Eastern District of Texas on October 15, 2026, the cyber attack began on October 10. It caused a system shutdown that affected all cases filed on or after September 14, 2026, and would last for at least 30 days.
“Bankruptcy notices are the machinery of due process, and the judiciary runs all of it through one contractor,” said Jacob Krell, Senior Director: Secure AI Solutions & Cybersecurity, Suzu Labs. “The Section 341 meeting notice opens the window for creditor claims, deadlines attach to service of every order, and since October 9 those clocks have been frozen nationwide while BAE Systems investigates a cyber incident that took the Bankruptcy Noticing Center offline.”
However, federal courts would continue accepting filings, open cases, and processing documents, but warned of potential delays until the disruption was resolved.
“Judges are already compensating, extending deadlines and continuing hearings district by district,” added Krell. “That is the detail that should worry anyone procuring for the courts. The outage never touched a courtroom, yet it rewrote the calendar of every bankruptcy case in the country, because a vendor bought like routine IT has become load-bearing infrastructure for the justice system.”
Meanwhile, BAE Systems said it was working with the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts (AOUSC) to resolve the cyber attack and restore normal operations. AOUSC has also confirmed it was working with BAE to restore the impacted systems.
“The Administrative Office of the US Courts has been in communication with the impacted courts and is also coordinating with BAE Systems. BAE is actively investigating this incident and working to restore operations,” it said.
John Strand, Owner, Black Hills Information Security, said the cyber attack highlights the interconnectedness of business and government processes.
“But look at any modern large organization. They have multiple SaaS platforms, third-party integrations, and customer data flowing in and out of systems they don’t own or control. That perimeter is a lot messier than people want to believe,” said Strand. “I still don’t think the industry has caught up with the risks we introduced through cloud computing and SaaS. Now we’re adding AI to the mix, giving attackers new ways to target those services and exploit the connections between them. We weren’t caught up before. We’re certainly not ready now.”
U.S. public institutions face an onslaught of cyber attacks
Cyber attacks by state-sponsored actors and financially motivated hackers continue to target the U.S. public sector.
In September 2026, the prolific hacking group ShinyHunters breached the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and stole 2 terabytes of data. The group said it targeted the FBI after the agency described it as a cyber extortion group that specializes in large-scale data breaches and uses “real or exaggerated claims of access to sensitive or personal information” to force victims to pay ransom.
In August 2025, a cyber attack hit the U.S. Federal Judiciary’s electronic case management systems, leaking public documents, some containing sensitive information that was “sealed from public view.” According to Politico, the leaked documents exposed the identities of confidential informants in numerous cases across various states, in a cyberattack believed to have been orchestrated by nation-state actors.
At the time, the U.S. Federal Judiciary said it was implementing additional security measures to prevent a similar incident in the future. The agency also said it was implementing stricter access controls to ensure sensitive documents were accessible only “under carefully controlled and monitored circumstances.”
