City officials and the Secret Service have confirmed that CCTV cameras in Washington DC have become hackers. According to information, 70 percent of CCTV surveillance devices were infected with ransomware.
According to the Washington Post:
City officials said police cameras were infected with ransomware between Jan. 12 and Jan. 15. The cyber-attack επηρέασε 123 από τις 187 συσκευές εγγραφής βίντεο που περιέχει το network, a closed circuit television system for public spaces throughout the city.
The secret service representative, Brian Ebert, said the public's safety was not compromised.
Archana Vemulapalli, the city's Chief Technology Officer, said they did not pay a ransom and plan to resolve the problem taking the devices offline. Then they should remove the infected operating system by resetting each camera.
Vemulapalli said the investigation is on development and that no other computer networks in the city are believed to have been breached.
The fact that the hackers used ransomware to infect the city's CCTV shows that their goal was money, not privacy. access in the security system. Ransomware as you know usually locks the infected system, rendering it unusable, until the ransom is paid by the victim.
Officials report that so far two different forms of ransomware have been discovered.
The police department insists that "there was no significant impact" from the infection but for now there are limited details about the incident. They claim that the hack will not affect any criminal investigations.
Let us also mention that the investigations at the moment have not led to a suspect.
