New JTC bulletins provide courts with playbooks for cyber resilience  

Cyberattacks targeting the judicial branch continue to rise in frequency, sophistication, and impact — from ransomware incidents to data breaches that disrupt public services and expose sensitive information.

To help courts prepare and respond, the Joint Technology Committee (JTC) has released updated editions of two resource bulletins: “Cybersecurity Basics for Courts” and “Cybersecurity Incident Planning and Response for Courts.”

The 2025 bulletins equip court leaders, administrators, and IT staff with comprehensive, court-specific planning tools and actionable frameworks that reflect today’s threat environment, lessons learned from recent incidents, and new national resources.

Highlights from the updated bulletins include:

• Cybersecurity Basics for Courts: Expands from introductory awareness to a comprehensive, court-specific playbook. New content includes real-world court incident examples, updated statistics, governance tools, continuity of operations structures, advanced strategies, and a cybersecurity discussion guide.

• Cybersecurity Incident Planning and Response for Courts: Shifts reactive guidance to a proactive, enterprise-wide planning framework. Updates emphasize governance, communication strategies with legal compliance considerations, operational continuity planning, and training exercises, featuring the NCSC Cybersecurity Workbook developed as part of a State ­Justice Institute (SJI) funded series of cybersecurity workshops.

• Both bulletins: Reinforce the importance of tabletop exercises, interagency coordination, vendor oversight, and leveraging free federal and state resources.

The JTC is a collaboration of the National Center for State Courts (NCSC), the Conference of State Court Administrators (COSCA), and the National Association for Court Management (NACM).

Links to both bulletins and additional cybersecurity planning tools are available at the JTC resources page at https://bit.ly/48mVd5K.

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