Arizona’s Supreme Court said a cyberattack copied personal information on 1.3 million people from the state court system, along with nearly 30,000 active and inactive orders of protection and 150,000 foster-care reports. The court believes the intrusion began when an employee clicked a malicious link in email, and staff shut it down on a backup server about two hours after spotting it on Sept. 24.
The attacker did not alter or delete records, and the court said there is no evidence the data has been used or shared. But the mechanism matters: one phishing click gave access deep enough to pull together routine payment records and highly sensitive child-welfare and protection-order files.
For courts and agencies that hold restraining-order, custody, social-services, or victim-support data, the exposure is not just operational. If those records are copied, the downstream risk is intimidation, stalking, and other safety harms long after the intrusion is contained.
Arizona courts say hackers stole info on more than 1.3 million people
The investigation into the incident revealed cybercriminals were able to breach the Fines/Fees and Restitution Enforcement (FARE) Program, a statewide program that helps the court collect outstanding debts tied to traffic and criminal violations.