L.A. County Superior Courts reopen after ransomware attack

The L.A. County Superior Courts have reopened all 36 locations after a "serious security event" Friday forced the technical services division to repair and reboot network computer systems - shutting down the courthouses through Monday.

Attorney Brad Gage tells KNX News' Karen Adams , "I have a lot of compassion for the court staff, the court clerks, our judges, our commissioners, and even court reporters. They're all getting backed up now because of this, and it's going to put a burden on them personally."

Gage says hundreds of cases had to be postponed because of the ransomware attack, and the current advice is to assume the hearings are off - "It's treated as if it's a court holiday," he said.

Officials say they don't believe court users' data was compromised at this time, and law enforcement agencies are working to find out who hacked the system.

They also say the attack was unrelated to the massive Crowdstrike outage.

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Presiding Judge Samantha P. Jessner said in a statement released Monday night, "I am grateful to the countless court staff who worked tirelessly over the past 96 hours since the attack was first detected to bring many of our network systems back online and ensure the largest trial court in the nation is able to reopen for business."

She said the decision to close the courts was difficult but necessary.

"The court will not function fully and completely [Tuesday], but promising and steady progress continues to be made, ensuring that we will recover from this attack and restore access to justice for the millions of court users that rely on the court," the statement continued.

Accrding to the county court website , "Users should expect delays and potential impacts due to limits in functionality.''

You can get the latest updates HERE .

City News Service contributed to this article.

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