PA Courts Website Hit By Cyberattack

[JaySmith]

Working in the system security adjacent sector, every single time I have to deal with IT, NOC, or any "system engineer" the amount of incompetence is not only astounding, but also terrifying. I keep thinking "if my life were to actually rely on these people, i'd be genuinely scared". Every one of them barely knows what they're doing, and if something goes wrong, no one knows what to do. It's like the guy that cleans the furnace, but doesn't actually know how the furnace functions. He knows what he was trained to do, and nothing else.

https://patch.com/pennsylvania/acros...it-cyberattack

HARRISBURG, PA — The Pennsylvania Courts website was hit by a cyberattack over the weekend, disabling parts of the site and reigniting security concerns.

The incident was described as a "denial of service" attack, and involved actors flooding the network with traffic until the site was unable to respond, preventing access for real users.

Officials said they did not believe any court data was compromised, and the site remains open to the public for use.

"Our court information technology and executive team is working closely with law enforcement including the CISA, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and the FBI to investigate the incident," Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Debra Todd said.

It is not clear who is responsible for the attack or what their specific motivation might have been.

Certain services remain impacted on the site, including the PACFile feature, docket sheets, PAePay, and the Guardianship Tracking System, officials said.

The investigation is ongoing. More information will be provided as it becomes available.

[streaker69]

I wouldn't lay this on the IT guys, but on the bean counters that probably denied multiple requests to upgrade their edge facing hardware to something that could hold up to a DDOS. Bean counters don't like to give money to IT unless they can prove it's actually needed. Next up, the SOE declaration so they can spend millions on short notice to replace the hardware that should have been replaced 20 years ago.

[knight0334]

I wouldn't lay this on the IT guys, but on the bean counters that probably denied multiple requests to upgrade their edge facing hardware to something that could hold up to a DDOS. Bean counters don't like to give money to IT unless they can prove it's actually needed. Next up, the SOE declaration so they can spend millions on short notice to replace the hardware that should have been replaced 20 years ago.

I wouldn't blame the bean counters either. Some DDoS attacks can only be stopped by disconnecting the server from the network.

Even with that, the connection itself will still be flooded, but the server itself will not be corrupted. The catch is, you have to be there right beside the server when it happens to pull the network cable out.

Whatever IP they are attacking will still have a flood of traffic until the attacker(s) feels they've done the damage.

[bogey1]

Guys, GUYS, It's trumps fault.

[JaySmith]

I wouldn't blame the bean counters either. Some DDoS attacks can only be stopped by disconnecting the server from the network.

Even with that, the connection itself will still be flooded, but the server itself will not be corrupted. The catch is, you have to be there right beside the server when it happens to pull the network cable out.

Whatever IP they are attacking will still have a flood of traffic until the attacker(s) feels they've done the damage.

DDOS mitigation is possible by just having a fatter pipe. Companies like cloudflare offer such protection, because they have such massive bandwidth available, as well as mitigation methods that involve routing traffic around the affected IP. Everyone in IT has heard of cloudflare, but few know how their process actually works. I had to deal with months of DDOS attacks where i basically built myself a mini cloudflare involving multiple servers around the country and just routing traffic to a different ip or server when it gets hit. I also have a cloudflare account and utilize their free and instant a-record and dns services so i don't have to wait for dns changes to propagate.

But that's the thing, I live this industry, after i go home, i do it more. Most IT guys don't.

[d4xycrq]

This System Engineer listened to his IA guy. Period. Tell me what to bid, I*d say. All that said, IA efforts broke the system many times. No hacker, disgruntled employee or foreign govt got past the cryptos. Imagine that.

[knight0334]

DDOS mitigation is possible by just having a fatter pipe. Companies like cloudflare offer such protection, because they have such massive bandwidth available, as well as mitigation methods that involve routing traffic around the affected IP. Everyone in IT has heard of cloudflare, but few know how their process actually works. I had to deal with months of DDOS attacks where i basically built myself a mini cloudflare involving multiple servers around the country and just routing traffic to a different ip or server when it gets hit. I also have a cloudflare account and utilize their free and instant a-record and dns services so i don't have to wait for dns changes to propagate.

But that's the thing, I live this industry, after i go home, i do it more. Most IT guys don't.

I think the state has some 1Gbps TLS(ethernet) circuits in Harrisburg for the PA Courts, at minimum(our 10G/100G availability has just come available in the last 3-5 years - ask me how I know.). I'm not sure how many circuits they have, and how Harrisburg's arrangement is set up, like whether as redundant or roll-over/diverse. All the county courts and magistrate offices in my work district have 100Mbps ethernet circuits, some oddballs with lower traffic have just 45Mb T3/50Mb OC1 or 10Mb circuits(although, I think I upgraded those in last couple years).

Most of the traffic on their connections is between court houses, magistrates, law firms, and official police queries. Not much is really used by the common folks to look up court dockets.

[Cville]

Maybe we need to pay more taxes so our officials can afford to keep our information secure. It is tax season...perhaps we should make extra donations to the PA Dept of Revenue this year

[GunLawyer001]

Test run for the emergency that will force a reluctant Democrat Regime to cancel the elections this year.

[GOYABEAN]

539q0d.jpg