State court officials announced Thursday that the personal and financial account information of about 6,600 people -- including criminal defendants -- has been exposed to an unknown cyber crook who gained access to several Oregon Judicial Department email accounts.

Individuals whose data might have been compromised in the phishing scam will receive letters notifying them as well as information about accessing credit monitoring programs, identity theft recovery services and a $1 million insurance reimbursement policy for any losses.

The Judicial Department is made up of about 1,800 employees who run the state’s 27 circuit courts, the Oregon Supreme Court, the Oregon Court of Appeals and the Oregon Tax Court.

The email attack happened July 15, when a Washington County Circuit Court employee opened up an email from the scammer, thinking it was sent from an attorney known by the employee, said Phillip Lemman, acting deputy state court administrator.

The employee typed in the employee’s user name and password when prompted to access something the attorney had supposedly sent, Lemman said.

Four other employees also fell for the trick. One was a judge and the others were administrative employees.

Lemman said after gaining the employees’ user names and passwords, the cyber scammer had the ability to access personal information such as names, birth dates and some financial account information contained in emailed documents. Those documents included rosters of criminal defendants in jail.

The cyber scammer didn’t gain access to any other Judicial Department systems, including systems that store case information, officials said.

As a precaution, the Judicial Department required all of its employees to change their passwords immediately after the attack. Lemman said all employees also were sent information about how to deflect future phishing attempts.

-- Aimee Green

agreen@oregonian.com

o_aimee

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