Philadelphia's court system website was shut down Tuesday afternoon to “safeguard” its systems after the First Judicial District experienced a “virus intrusion on a limited number of computers,” said city spokesperson Mike Dunn. The city didn't provide details on when it expected to fully go back online.

The shutdown has left the First Judicial District's website, online civil docket search and the e-filing system for civil and criminal cases inaccessible. Public access to court filings through the city's public computers for criminal records, filings, motions and appeals were also down as of Friday afternoon.

Dunn said in an emailed press statement that the city's Office of Innovation and Technology, in conjunction with the First Judicial District, shut down certain court IT functions to “fully review and clean the operating systems. This is a necessary step to contain the virus.”

Dunn noted the intrusion wasn't a data breach nor a ransomware attack and that all court proceedings are taking place as scheduled.

Indeed, while the servers are down, the First Judicial District of Pennsylvania said emergency civil filings can be made in person in Room 296 at City Hall. “The judiciary is aware of the system outage and if filing deadlines are missed, the outage can be referenced if needed,” the court said in a tweet.

Meanwhile, all filings to the Trial Division of the First Judicial District are being accepted at the Office of Judicial Records, the court also wrote in a tweet. Legaltech News observed city employees at Room 296 manually filling out applicants' forms and time-stamping the documents as online filing remained down as of Friday afternoon.

The city hasn't given a clear indication of when all of the city's court system's functions will go back online. In an email Dunn said, “The team is working on restoring all functionality as quickly as possible.”

As the city works through the inconvenience, the shutdown brings into focus how it's not just the large private entities that face cybersecurity risks, said Philadelphia-based XPAN Law Group co-founder and managing partner Rebecca Rakoski.

Rakoski, who practices exclusively in cybersecurity and data privacy and has no direct knowledge of the Philadelphia incident, said the shutdown highlighted how cybersecurity should be a top concern for every organization. 

“Cybersecurity is a huge issue today and everybody realizes we are all at risk; there is no group without risk or not subjected to risk. Everyone needs to be hypervigilant.”