Romanians Who Hacked D.C.'s Police Cameras Had Bigger Plans Than Initially Thought

When hackers took over two-thirds of D.C. police’s surveillance cameras days before the 2017 presidential inauguration, it appeared that the cyberattack was limited to elicit a single ransom payment.

But court documents show that the alleged scheme that January was far more ambitious.

Federal authorities say two Romanians accused in the hacking planned to use the police department computers to email ransomware to more than 179,000 accounts. That would have allowed them to extort those users as well — and use city government computers to hide their digital tracks. Prosecutors said the alleged hackers had also stolen banking credentials and account passwords, and, using the police computers, could have committed “fraud schemes with anonymity.”