A recent cyberattack has forced The Alaska Court System (ACS) to temporarily discontinue its online services to the public including electronic court filings, online payments, and also prevented hearings that take place via videoconference till the cybersecurity unit removes malware from its network including its working website. Due to the ongoing world pandemic, court matters were being dealt with by an online service. However, now services will be given through phone calls. 

On Saturday, a statement has been put out by the court in which the court said that its website will be inactive and people will not be able to search cases while its research unit fixes the malware that has been executed on its network, in order to prevent a further cyber attack. 

"Today, we were advised that there did appear to be some attempts to infiltrate the court system's computer system. And so we figured out a way to disconnect from the internet to stop the problem to prevent anyone from continuing to try to tinker with our network”, Alaska Supreme Court Chief Justice Joel Bolger. 

Additionally, the court told that all currently scheduled cases and other emergency hearings on critical matters will be heard on their time. 

“I think for a few days, there may be some inconveniences, there may be some hearings that are canceled or some judges who decide to shift from videoconference to teleconference proceedings or the like. We don’t have all of that figured out yet,” Alaska Supreme Court Chief Justice Joel Bolger, the court system’s top administrative officer, told the press. 

This cyberattack is just another example of cyber threats against governmental organizations. There is no doubt that because of the pandemic, cyberattacks against government organizations have been increased. Along with Government organizations, the state and local level governments, with private firms and schools, hospitals, are also being targeted massively. 

In the light of the cyber threat, the newly formed Ransomware Task Force, which works under Microsoft and Amazon experts: aims at fixing ransomware and finding solutions to combat these cyberattacks. 

In the latest report, the task force has provided some haunting statistics of ransomware attacks: 

The average downtime due to ransomware attacks is 21 days, the average number of days it takes an organization to fully recover is 287, victims paid $350 million in ransom in 2020, a 311% increase from 2019, and the average ransom payment was $312,493, a 171% increase from 2019.