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 January 12 and January 15. The cyber-attack affected 123 of the 187 devices enrollments video containing the 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 issue by taking the devices offline. Then they should remove the infected operating system making reset in every camera.
Vemulapalli said the research is in progress and it is not believed that other computer networks have been broken in the city.
The fact that hackers used ransomware to pollute city CCTV shows that their goal was money and not access to the security system. The ransomware as you know usually locks the infected system, making it useless 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.
