US taking ‘special measures’ to protect people possibly exposed in court records hack

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By Sarah N. Lynch and Nate Raymond

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. government is taking unspecified “special measures” to protect people potentially exposed in a recent hack of court records, a top U.S. Department of Justice official said on Thursday.

The hack of the federal judiciary’s filing systems has raised concerns across the judiciary since it was disclosed last month, in part because of reports that data about confidential informants and other sealed case files may have been accessed. Although details of the intrusion – or intrusions – have yet to be made public, a person familiar with the matter said unspecified foreign actors had been identified as the culprits. The New York Times reported on Tuesday that investigators believed Russia was at least partly responsible. 

“We’re aware of the issue,” Acting Assistant Attorney General Matt Galeotti told reporters at a briefing. “There’s different filing measures that are being put in place. We’re also taking other different technical steps.” He added that in cases involving individuals who were possibly “subject to some sort of release of information,” the department is “taking special measures in those cases.”

Galeotti did not elaborate on the nature of those measures, and the DOJ and the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts did not immediately answer questions about his comments. The person familiar with the matter said chief judges throughout the country were notified in mid-July that at least eight federal court districts had been targeted by the hackers. 

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch in Washington and Nate Raymond in Boston. Writing by Raphael Satter.Editing by Rod Nickel)