BAE security incident halts US bankruptcy court notices

A security incident at BAE Systems has knocked out the systems that distribute notices for every US federal bankruptcy court. BAE operates the Bankruptcy Noticing Center (BNC) on behalf of the Administrative Office of the US Courts (AOUSC), and paper and electronic notices issued through the center since October 9 have not been delivered. Neither the judiciary nor BAE has confirmed it was a cyberattack or that any data was stolen — so far this is an operational outage with an unconfirmed cause.

The sources are the AOUSC's October 15 statement, reported by BleepingComputer and SecurityWeek.

What's affected

Per the AOUSC, "all access to the BNC systems and websites that BAE operates on behalf of the judiciary" is unavailable. That includes:

• bnc.uscourts.gov
• bankruptcynotices.uscourts.gov
• notices.uscourts.gov
• The National Creditor Registration Service, which is offline — so filers using the courts' electronic system cannot generate the creditor mailing lists they need to serve documents.

What still works: electronic filing notifications to registered attorneys, trustees, and the US Trustee are still being sent, and courts continue to accept filings and open new cases.

What happened, and what we don't know

• October 9: BAE told the AOUSC of the problem late in the day. Notice generation and distribution stopped.
• October 13: several bankruptcy courts posted "service disruption" notices without mentioning security.
• October 15: the AOUSC confirmed the center is no longer generating or sending notices and is coordinating with BAE, with no estimated restoration date.

A BAE spokesperson said the company is "aware of a security incident that is isolated to the BNC system and have taken immediate steps to address it." No attacker has been identified. Neither party has characterized the cause, confirmed a compromise, or said whether any data was accessed. We are holding the "cyberattack" framing at arm's length until one of them does.

What to do today

For attorneys, trustees, and creditors who rely on BNC notices:

1. Do not assume you've been served. Any notice routed through the BNC since October 9 may not have been delivered. Check case dockets directly through CM/ECF rather than waiting on a mailed or emailed notice.
2. Track deadlines defensively. Objection and response windows that depend on a notice's service date may be affected. Calendar conservatively and watch for court orders extending deadlines.
3. Generate creditor lists another way. With the National Creditor Registration Service down, confirm the current workaround with the relevant court before relying on a cached list.
4. Watch for impersonation. Outages like this are a lure for fake "court notice" phishing. Treat unexpected bankruptcy-notice emails with suspicion and verify through official court channels.

Context

The federal judiciary's notice and filing plumbing has been a soft target before: a 2025 intrusion hit the CM/ECF and PACER systems, though there is no confirmation this incident is related. The through-line is third-party dependency — the courts don't run the BNC themselves, and an incident at the contractor becomes an incident for every bankruptcy court in the country. We'll update this post if BAE or the AOUSC confirms a cause or any data exposure.