Dozens of clerk of court servers in Louisiana and across the country were hacked around Christmas Day by an international organization.
The hack impacts any clerk of court that uses “Cott Hosting” for their server. Because it involves an international organization, Homeland Security and the FBI are now involved and investigating.
Sources tell Unfiltered with Kiran Cott Hosting shut down the server to keep from any information being stolen after the company noticed some suspicious activity. That means the millions of files on the server should be protected unless the hackers were able to access them prior to Cott Hosting shutting down the servers.
In some cases, property, civil and criminal records are all down if they’re all on the same server with Cott Hosting. If not, then some records may still be available.
Christmas Day is when several Louisiana clerks noticed the problem and it is still an ongoing issue.
It’s also why inmates are having a difficult time making bond especially when it comes to property bonds.
The clerk of court’s office verifies who the property belongs to and then approves the property bond, but since their server is down, some people are limited in being released.
Officials are trying to figure out a process for inmates to be able to make bond that does not involve property bonds. The details have not been finalized at this time. The process would go through the jail and the judge as long as the bond would be less than $50,000. The type of charge would also dictate if the inmate is eligible for a bond.
Officials are hoping to have the servers back up and running possibly as soon as tomorrow.
Louisiana Clerk of Court offices impacted include:
Assumption, Avoyelles, Beauregard, DeSoto, East Feliciana, Evangeline, Iberville, Livingston, Madison, Plaquemines, Sabine, St. Bernard, St. Charles, St. James, St. Martin, St. Mary, Tangipahoa, Tensas, Terrebonne, Union, Washington, West Baton Rouge, West Feliciana
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