Kansas courts system reboots after October cyberattack

The website for searching Kansas district court cases is back online after an October 12 cyberattack that caused a months-long outage. According to a news release, the court system is now active in 102 of 105 county district courts.

But the Kansas District Court Public Access Portal, which usually pulls information from a statewide case management system, is now out of date after courts were unable to access either system from mid-October through mid-December.

Lisa Taylor, a spokesperson at the Kansas Office of Judicial Administration, said district courts are working to digitize case information that was recorded on paper while the management system was incapacitated.

“Case events and case documents processed after the October 12 security incident may not show up in search, at least initially,” Taylor told StateScoop in an email.

A feature of the portal that allows members of the public to pay fines, fees and other costs has also been restored, but information about recent payments and related case data may also be out of date, Taylor said.

“Payments processed October 12 and after may not appear in the payment portal. The Central Payment Center in the Office of Judicial Administration is logging payments made since October 12 as quickly as possible,” she said.

Taylor said the courts are also troubleshooting issues with the restored portal after users reported system errors.

A system that Kansas attorneys use to file documents in district court cases also has not been fully restored, but the courts will announce when electronic filing can resume, she said.

“In the short time we’ve offered free online case search for district courts as part of our Kansas eCourt modernization plan, it has become our most popular service,” Chief Justice Marla Luckert said in a Tuesday news release. “Restoring the ability to search case information online is yet another major milestone in our restoration plan.”