Texas Appellate Courts Almost Back Online After Ransomware Attack

After two months and two days of dealing with a disabling ransomware attack that disrupted access to their files, Texas’ appellate courts are finally seeing a light at the end of the tunnel.

Through a series of file backup systems, the Texas Office of Court Administration was able to restore most of the appellate courts’ files, although some of the smaller courts lost some documents, said Casey Kennedy, director of information services at the agency. At this point, Kennedy and his team have restored the courts’ case management system. By next week, they aim to fix an automatic link to the courts’ websites, so that case filings will start posting online again.

Although it seems a terrible time to deal with a ransomware attack–in the middle of a pandemic—there was actually a silver lining.