Cyber criminals hack Washington court system

Hackers have gained access to the personal information of 160,000 US citizens after compromising Washington State court service servers.

According to a Threatpost.com report, through a vulnerability in Adobe ColdFusion,160,000 social security numbers as well as the driving licence numbers and names of a million people were accessed by the hackers.

It is not yet clear when the attack happened but it is said to have been after September 2012.

The administration organisation for the courts said it took immediate action to secure the information when the attach was revealed. 

“The attackers had no access to financial information, but were able to access 160,000 SSNs,” it said in a statement. 

“The potential pool of people whose driver’s license numbers and names were accessed is much larger.”

According to a Reuters report, Mike Keeling, information technology operations and maintenance manager for the court system, said: "The access occurred through a ‘back door' part of a commercial software product we were using, and it is patched now."