A cyber incident at BAE Systems Inc., the US subsidiary of the British defence contractor, has disrupted the Bankruptcy Noticing Center (BNC) operations and offline access to key notifying systems since around 9 October. The BNC is the federal judiciary’s channel for sending official notices to creditors and attorneys in bankruptcy cases, and its domains include bnc.uscourts[.]gov, bankruptcynotices.uscourts[.]gov, notices.uscourts[.]gov and the National Creditor Registration Service.
The incident has halted production and distribution of bankruptcy notices across the federal courts, meaning scheduling, mailing matrices and related electronic services tied to the noticing process are not functioning.
The US judiciary and Reuters report that the incident is being treated as a cybersecurity event affecting BAE-operated services supporting the BNC, with the contractor coordinating with the courts on the response. The parties have not disclosed technical details, whether it was a deliberate attack or another type of incident, or whether any data was accessed or exfiltrated.
Public notices from the Eastern District of Texas indicate BAE first warned the Administrative Office about the disruption on 9 October, with courts only issuing disruption advisories later and the broader cybersecurity framing not appearing until 15 October.
As of the latest updates, courts remain able to accept new filings and electronic notices to registered attorneys continue to flow in some parts of the system, but the noticing pipeline itself remains down. The incident underscores ongoing concerns about how contractor-operated critical infrastructure can impact nationwide court operations, with no stated restoration timeline and limited disclosure on root causes.