Man to plead guilty to hacking US Supreme Court filing system

A resident of Springfield, Tennessee is expected to plead guilty to hacking the U.S. Supreme Court’s electronic document filing system dozens of times over several months. 

Prosecutors say between August and October 2023, Nicholas Moore, 24, “intentionally accessed a computer without authorization on 25 different days and thereby obtained information from a protected computer,” according to a court document. 

As of this writing, there aren’t any more details about exactly what information Moore accessed, nor how it was accessed. Moore is scheduled to plead guilty in court by video-link on Friday.

When reached, a spokesperson for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, which brought the charges against Moore, told TechCrunch that prosecutors cannot provide any more information that hasn’t already been made public.

Spokespeople for the U.S. Department of Justice did not immediately respond to TechCrunch’s request for more information about the case. 

Moore’s lawyer, Eugene Ohm, did not respond to an email seeking comment. 

The case was first spotted by Court Watch’s Seamus Hughes, a researcher and journalist who monitors court documents. 

This is one of several occasions in recent years in which hackers have compromised U.S. court systems. The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, which oversees the federal judiciary, said in August that it had strengthened its cybersecurity defenses following a cyberattack on its electronic court records system. 

Hackers working for the Russian government were blamed for the breach.

Do you have more information about this case? Or about other data breaches? We would love to hear from you. From a non-work device, you can contact Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai securely on Signal at +1 917 257 1382, or via Telegram and Keybase @lorenzofb, or email.