City officials and the Secret Service confirmed that police surveillance cameras (CCTV) in Washington DC were targeted by hackers. Reportedly, 70 percent of devices monitorings CCTVs 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, Chief Technology Officer της πόλης, ανέφερε ότι δεν κατέβαλαν λύτρα και ότι σχεδιάζουν να επιλύσουν το πρόβλημα βγάζοντας τις συσκευές offline. Μετά θα πρέπει να αφαιρέσουν το μολυσμένο λειτουργικό σύστημα κάνοντας reset σε κάθε 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 goal was money, not access to the system security. 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.
