It was all because of human error, local officials say

Jun 22, 2017 09:30 GMT  ·  By

The WannaCry ransomware keeps making victims, and this time it appears that the virus has even managed to take down a bunch of traffic lights and speed cameras in Australia.

Based on an exploit stolen from the NSA by hacking group Shadow Brokers, the WannaCry malware locks down systems by encrypting files and asking for a ransom to decrypt them. Microsoft has already delivered patches for all Windows versions earlier this year, but outdated systems remain vulnerable.

In the case of the Australian incident, radio station 3aw reports that it was all because of human error, as someone has apparently connected an infected USB that allowed the malware to spread across the network.

55 cameras knocked offline

But while some 55 cameras were taken down because of WannaCry, the servers operating the cameras were not compromised, as they’re not running Windows, local officials have said. Furthermore, IT engineers are in the process of deploying patches to block WannaCry from spreading, they said.

“The Department is in the process of removing the virus from the affected cameras. The remaining sites will be rectified in the next couple of days. The software virus has not impacted the accuracy of the camera system. All infringements during this period have been captured correctly, and no infringements have been affected by the virus,” a Justice and Regulation spokesperson was quoted as saying.

Camera vendor Redflex Traffic Systems has already been contacted to help deal with the infection, with authorities explaining that cameras only need to be restarted to apply the patch. The majority of cameras have already been fixed, with a small number of them still infected, but projected to be cleaned as soon as possible.

While it’s not very clear when the whole infected happened, Australian officials say evidence of WannaCry infection was spotted a few days ago and it’s not known at this point if any other systems were impacted or not.

Running fully up-to-date antivirus software and updating Windows systems with the most recent patches from Microsoft is the easiest way to remain protected against WannaCry, as the malware attempts to exploit an SMB vulnerability in the operating system.