Speed cameras knocked out after cyber attack

A hack of the Netherlands' Public Prosecution Service has had an unusual side effect - causing some speed cameras to be no longer capturing evidence of motorists breaking the rules of the road.

Last month, Dutch media reports confirmed that Openbaar Ministerie (OM), the official body responsible for bringing suspects before the criminal court in the Netherlands, had suffered a security breach by hackers.

The National Cybersecurity Centre (NCSC) and data protection regulators in The Netherlands were informed that a data breach had potentially occurred, and an internal memo from the organisation's director of IT warned of the risks of reconnecting systems to the internet without knowing that the hackers had been expelled from the network.

And it is the disconnection of systems which has left many speed cameras in a non-functioning state - news that will bemuse cybercriminals, delight errant motorists, but is unlikely to be welcomed by those who care about road safety.

Local media reports claim that fixed speed cameras, average speed checks, and portable speed cameras that are usually in one location for about two months before relocation are impacted by the outage - with the only type to escape the problem being those which look out for motorists who are using their mobile phone while driving.

According to evidence seen by journalists, the Public Prosecution Service took itself offline on July 17, following suspicions that hackers had exploited vulnerabilities in Citrix devices to gain unauthorised access.

The organisation's disconnection from the internet left workers still able to email each other internally, but any communications or documents that were needed outside the organisation had to be printed out on paper.

Marthyne Kunst, a member of the crisis team dealing with the hack, told the media that this meant messages were having to be sent by post, lawyers were having to bring paperwork to their cases.

The consequence? Cases may be prevented from going ahead in a timely fashion.

"Unfortunately, it all takes more time," said Kunst.

And as for the speed cameras? Well, apparently it is not possible to reactivate them while the prosecution service's systems are down.

So this isn't a case of police cameras being hacked (although that has happened before), but it is another example of how all manner of connected systems can be impacted in the aftermath of a cyber attack.

The outage of speed cameras in the Netherlands is a timely reminder to us that cyber attacks do not just steal data - they can cause repercussions in sometimes strange and dangerous ways. In this instance, a hack hasn't only slowed down court cases and forced lawyers back to their filing cabinets, it has also blinded cameras designed to keep roads safe.