Courtroom Recording Software Hacked

Justice AV Solutions (JAVS), a widely used courtroom recording software, has been compromised. JAVS also records many small government functions such as council meetings and various proceedings in jails and prisons. Jonathan Greig and James Reddick, writing in The Record, say the hackers gained full control of the systems by planting a file in an update.

The cybersecurity firm Rapid7 published an analysis of the issue which found that the corrupted software transmits data about the host system to a server belonging to the threat actors. The firm coordinated disclosure of the problem with the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

According to a company statement: “Through ongoing monitoring and collaboration with cyber authorities, we identified attempts to replace our Viewer 8.3.7 software with a compromised file, We pulled all versions of Viewer 8.3.7 from the JAVS website, reset all passwords, and conducted a full internal audit of all JAVS systems. We confirmed all currently available files on the JAVS.com website are genuine and malware-free” 

In its advisory, Rapid7 advised re-imaging all endpoints where the software was installed, and resetting credentials on web browsers, and for any accounts logged into affected endpoints, both local and remote. “Simply uninstalling the software is insufficient, as attackers may have implanted additional backdoors or malware. Re-imaging provides a clean slate,” they wrote.

Cybersecurity professionals say that threat actors focus on exploiting software updates because users tend to enable them automatically, or routinely hit “update” when prompted. The well-publicized SolarWinds breach exploited the update process to surreptitiously install malware.