Cybersecurity problems are distressingly apparent in the City of Brotherly Love these days. The city court’s website has been shut down by a virus since May 21 (the website went back online Monday, July 1). A decade after Philadelphia courts instituted an e-filing system, law firms have reverted to filing hard copies of documents the old-fashioned way. For young attorneys, the idea of filing and serving paper documents is a brave new world. For their more experienced colleagues, the feeling is more akin to “Back to the Future.”

Philadelphia officials continue to avoid revealing any detailed information regarding the security breach. The official story is a virus was found on only certain computer programs, and were shut down as a precaution. Most observers expected the “precaution” of the shutdown to last a day or two at the most. That was over four weeks ago.