Bankruptcy Court Notices Restart in South Alabama After Cyber Incident Causes Weeks-Long Backlog

MOBILE, Ala. — Federal bankruptcy court notices are flowing again in south Alabama after a bankruptcy notice outage tied to a nationwide cybersecurity incident left debtors, creditors and their attorneys without routine court mailings and emails for weeks.

The Bankruptcy Noticing Center, which sends paper and electronic court notices to people and businesses involved in bankruptcy cases, resumed operations late in the afternoon on Monday, Oct. 26. The federal courts are now working through a backlog of notices that dates back to early October.

The disruption affected bankruptcy court systems across the country. In the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Alabama, which is based in Mobile, judges had already taken steps to protect people who may have missed deadlines because notices never arrived.

How the bankruptcy notice outage began

BAE Systems, the vendor behind the affected programs, notified the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts on Oct. 9 that it was experiencing problems. The Administrative Office, which provides administrative support to the federal judiciary, later disclosed that the disruption to numerous bankruptcy systems was linked to a cybersecurity incident. The agency has not released details about the nature of the incident or whether any information was accessed.

The federal judiciary has faced cybersecurity challenges before. In August 2025, it announced it was strengthening protections for sensitive case filings after cyberattacks on its electronic case management system.

Local judges suspended penalties

On Oct. 13, Chief U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Jerry C. Oldshue and U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Henry A. Callaway of the Southern District of Alabama issued an administrative order addressing the outage. The order indefinitely suspended penalties for failing to respond to court filings that parties had not received.

That kind of relief matters in bankruptcy, where much of a case runs on deadlines. Court notices tell debtors when to appear at the meeting of creditors, tell creditors how long they have to file a claim to be paid, and set deadlines for objecting to a discharge or to a proposed repayment plan. Missing one of those dates can have serious consequences, such as a creditor losing the chance to share in a distribution or a debtor’s case being dismissed.

The Southern District of Alabama covers Mobile and Baldwin counties as well as a number of other counties in the southwestern part of the state, so the outage reached filers across the region.

Cases pushed into January

Barry Friedman, a Mobile attorney who handles some bankruptcy cases, said Wednesday that most of his cases have been postponed until January while court operations are brought back up to speed. Friedman said he currently represents roughly 20 bankruptcy filers.

Postponements give the courts and the noticing center time to make sure that everyone involved in a case has actually received the paperwork they need before hearings and deadlines go forward.

Systems restored, backlog under way

On Tuesday, Oct. 27, the local court posted a notice on its website telling attorneys that the systems had been restored.

“The Bankruptcy Noticing Center restarted their operations late in the afternoon on October 26, 2026. Their implementation plan will be to process backlog printing in parallel with polling the court’s websites daily for newly received work until normal operating conditions are restored,” the court said.

In other words, the center is printing and mailing the notices that piled up during the outage while also handling new notices as courts issue them each day.

Under its recovery schedule, the noticing center expects to have worked through notices dated up to Oct. 23 by Saturday, Oct. 31.

Warnings on delayed notices

Because some deadlines may have passed while notices sat in the backlog, the Bankruptcy Noticing Center will print a warning on paper notices generated since Oct. 13. The warning advises recipients that deadlines listed in the notice may have already passed and that amended notices could follow.

Recipients who have questions about deadlines are being directed to contact their attorneys or the clerk’s office of the bankruptcy court handling their case.

Phone calls to the local U.S. Bankruptcy Court seeking additional information were not returned.

What filers and creditors should do

People with active bankruptcy cases in south Alabama can take a few steps to make sure they do not fall behind:

• Read every notice carefully, especially any paper notice dated on or after Oct. 13 that carries the warning about possibly expired deadlines.
• Watch for amended notices that may reset dates for hearings, meetings of creditors or filing deadlines.
• Contact your attorney if you are represented, and ask whether any hearing in your case has been moved.
• Contact the clerk’s office of the bankruptcy court handling your case if you do not have an attorney and are unsure about a deadline.
• Check the docket. Case dockets are available through the federal judiciary’s PACER system, which lets users look up filings and hearing dates directly.

About the Bankruptcy Noticing Center

The Bankruptcy Noticing Center is a centralized service used by bankruptcy courts across the country. Rather than each court mailing its own notices, courts send notice information to the center, which produces and delivers notices by mail or electronically to debtors, creditors and other parties in interest. Creditors can sign up for electronic noticing to receive notices by email instead of on paper.

Because so many courts rely on the same service, a disruption at the center can delay notices in bankruptcy cases nationwide at the same time, as happened this month.

What comes next

The noticing center plans to keep processing the backlog alongside new notices until normal operations return. It has not said when it expects to be fully caught up on all delayed notices. The Southern District of Alabama’s administrative order suspending penalties for unreceived filings remains in place indefinitely, and local attorneys expect many hearings to resume in January.