Washington DC 123 from 187 CCTV devices were infected with ransomware

City officials and the Secret Service confirmed that the police surveillance (CCTV) in Washington DC were targeted . According to reports, 70 percent of CCTV surveillance devices were infected with ransomware.CCTV

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 video recording devices containing the , a closed circuit television system for public spaces throughout the city.

The representative of the Secret Service Mr. Brian Ebert stated that the of the public was not compromised.

Archana Vemulapalli, Chief Technology Officer of the city, said they did not pay a ransom and that they are planning to solve the problem by unplugging offline devices. Then you have to remove the infected operating system by resetting it to each 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 the hackers used ransomware to infect the city's CCTV shows that their target was the and not the access to 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.

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Written by giorgos

George still wonders what he's doing here ...

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