Overview
BAE Systems says no data was extracted and no personally identifiable information was breached in the incident that disrupted the Bankruptcy Noticing Center (BNC), the system federal bankruptcy courts use to send notices. BAE operates the BNC under contract with the US judiciary.
BAE said no other systems were affected and that it worked with the Administrative Office of the US Courts to resume operations. It did not say what caused the incident or whether it was a cyberattack, and no ransomware or cybercrime group has publicly claimed responsibility.
Timeline
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| ~October 9 | Notices stop flowing through the BNC |
| October 22 | The Judicial Conference declares a "Bankruptcy Rules emergency," letting judges extend deadlines, pause time periods, and issue related orders |
| October 26 | The BNC returns online and starts clearing delayed notices, oldest first |
| October 27 | The Administrative Office of the US Courts, citing BAE, confirms the problems are fixed |
| October 29 | BAE states that no data was extracted |
The outage lasted more than two weeks. One date reference in the original coverage could not be reconciled with the linked court page, so treat the October 27 confirmation date as approximate.
Why It Matters
The BNC is a single point of dependency for every federal bankruptcy court. When it stopped, creditors and debtors did not receive notices that start legal deadlines, which is why the judiciary had to invoke emergency rules.
Lessons for organizations that rely on contractors for critical workflows:
- Document manual fallbacks for notice and delivery processes.
- Ask vendors for incident cause and scope, not just a statement that service is restored.
- Treat "no data extracted" claims as unverified until a root cause is published.