Every federal bankruptcy court in the United States has lost access to the system it uses to send out bankruptcy notices. A BAE Systems cyberattack has disrupted the Bankruptcy Noticing Center (BNC), the platform that produces and transmits notices for all federal bankruptcy courts across the country.

The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts confirmed the incident in a statement on Thursday afternoon. BAE Systems, a British multinational, operates BNC systems and websites on behalf of the Federal Judiciary. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which typically handles cyberattacks on federal agencies, referred questions to the U.S. Courts.

What the BAE Systems Cyberattack Has Taken Offline

According to the U.S. Courts, BAE Systems IT and websites that support BNC operations have been impacted by a cybersecurity incident. As a result, all access to the BNC systems and websites that BAE operates for the judiciary is currently unavailable. That includes:

• bnc.uscourts.gov
• bankruptcynotices.uscourts.gov
• notices.uscourts.gov
• the National Creditor Registration Service

The incident has also halted the BNC’s production and distribution of bankruptcy notices for the courts.

The Administrative Office said it has been in contact with the affected courts and is coordinating with BAE Systems. BAE is investigating the incident and working to restore operations. No timeline for recovery has been shared, and the nature of the attack has not been disclosed.

A Government Contractor Target, Again

The BNC disruption is the latest in a series of incidents where an attack on a government contractor or third-party vendor has spilled over into public services.

Last week, a contact center for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), a Department of Transportation safety agency, was temporarily taken offline after a government contractor was targeted by a cyberattack, according to two people with knowledge of the situation who were granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record.

The contact center is run by support provider Senture. The FMCSA first reported technical difficulties on social media on October 6. It remains unclear when that attack began or whether it is ongoing.

Courts Have Been Hit Through Vendors Before

In September 2026, the Kentucky Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) confirmed that Kentucky Appellate Court data was compromised in a breach traced to a third-party vendor.

West Publishing Corporation, operating as Thomson Reuters Court Management Solutions (Thomson Reuters CMS), told the AOC that the incident originated in file systems tied to its C-Track case management platform. C-Track is used by the Kentucky Supreme Court and the Kentucky Court of Appeals to manage case records.

According to Thomson Reuters CMS, an unauthorized third party accessed and obtained court data from C-Track systems across several states, not just Kentucky. In Kentucky’s case, exposure was limited to appellate court data stored within the C-Track infrastructure.

Trial-level records that were never part of an appeal were not affected, since Kentucky does not use third-party vendors for trial court e-filing. The AOC said its appellate courts continued to operate normally throughout the incident.

Why the BAE Systems Cyberattack Matters

Taken together, the three incidents show a common thread. Courts and federal agencies increasingly depend on outside contractors to run critical systems, and when those contractors are hit, the impact lands directly on public services.

In the BNC case, a single compromised contractor has stopped a core function for every federal bankruptcy court at once. How quickly BAE Systems can restore the platform, and whether any data was accessed, remain the key open questions.

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A cyber incident at a BAE Systems subsidiary just stopped every bankruptcy court in the US from sending notices, and the problem started a week ago.

A security incident at BAE Systems Inc., the US subsidiary of British defense contractor BAE Systems, has taken the Bankruptcy Noticing Center offline since October 9. The Bankruptcy Noticing Center (BNC) is the system that federal bankruptcy courts use to send official notices. It handles court notices, messages to creditors, and deadline notifications that keep everyone involved in a case informed.

“BAE Systems IT and websites that support the operations of the Bankruptcy Noticing Center (BNC) have been impacted by a cybersecurity incident.” reads the official judiciary statement. “As a result of the incident, all access to the BNC systems and websites that BAE operates on behalf of the judiciary and the related bankruptcy noticing process are unavailable at this time, including bnc.uscourts.gov, bankruptcynotices.uscourts.gov, notices.uscourts.gov, and the National Creditor Registration Service.  The incident has also halted the BNC’s production and distribution of bankruptcy notices for bankruptcy courts.”

The disruption has prevented the center, which BAE operates on behalf of the federal judiciary, from generating and sending notices to creditors, courts, and attorneys in federal bankruptcy cases across the country. This is not a minor service disruption. The entire notification system used by federal bankruptcy courts across the country is down.

“Several online services supporting US federal ​courts’ bankruptcy systems have gone offline following ‌a cybersecurity incident involving a court contractor, the Administrative Office of the US Courts (AOC) said on Thursday.” Reuters reported.

The US judiciary explained that the BNC sends bankruptcy notices for every federal bankruptcy court in the country.

Affected domains include bnc.uscourts.gov, bankruptcynotices.uscourts.gov, notices.uscourts.gov, and the National Creditor Registration Service. With that last one down, attorneys using the electronic filing system can’t generate the creditor mailing lists they normally need to serve documents. Courts are still accepting new case filings and electronic notifications to registered attorneys are still going out, but anything tied to the noticing pipeline itself has been dark since last Thursday.

A BAE Systems spokesperson said that the company ​is “aware of a security incident that is isolated ​to the BNC system” and has taken immediate steps to ‌address ⁠it. BAE Systems is “coordinating closely” with the courts on the response, the spokesperson said.

Neither BAE nor the judiciary disclosed tachnical details of the incident, whether it was a deliberate cyber attack or a different kind of incident, or whether any data was accessed or taken.

The Eastern District of Texas bankruptcy court’s own public notice adds a useful detail: BAE first told the Administrative Office about the problem late on October 9, which means the court system’s administrative leadership knew by that evening.

“Late on Friday, October 9, 2026, BAE Systems, the contractor that services the Bankruptcy Noticing Center (BNC), notified the Administrative Office of a service disruption impacting BAE systems that process notices as well as the following websites: bnc.uscourts.gov, bankruptcynotices.uscourts.gov, notices.uscourts.gov, and the National Creditor Registration Service website that supports CM/ECF access to address labels (the mailing matrix).” reads the notice.

“Because of this disruption, the court polling and certification drop-off process that supports the delivery of electronic and paper notices has been interrupted and the BNC is unable to provide noticing services to the courts at this time.”

Courts started posting disruption notices on October 13, but none of them mentioned a cybersecurity incident at that point, several framed it as a service interruption. The public acknowledgment of the word “cybersecurity” didn’t come until October 15.

Summarizing, the incident started on or before October 9. The judiciary’s administrative office learned about it that day. Courts informed users of the problem on October 13, and the public announcement confirming a cybersecurity incident came on October 15. That’s six days between the contractor discovering the problem and the public announcement. During that time, bankruptcy cases across the country continued without the system that sends notices to keep courts, creditors, and lawyers informed. No one has announced when the service might be restored, suggesting the investigation is still at an early stage.

This incident highlights a recurring problem: critical systems operated by contractors can fail in a single incident, disrupting services across every federal court handling a specific type of case. The public also waited nearly a week for an official statement. This is not a new pattern, but it keeps happening.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, BAE Systems)