The LiveScan fingerprint-tracking system used by the New York Police Department was infected with ransomware last week, prompting the NYPD to take the database offline on Friday night. The department managed to get the systems back up and running by Saturday morning. Fortunately the impact of the attack was limited to downtime, since the ransomware never executed.
The ransomware infection was the result of a seemingly inadvertent supply-chain incident. An unidentified contractor of the police department accidentally introduced the malware on the system while installing a digital display on it. One of the computers used to perform the installation had been compromised and spread the ransomware across the network.
Read more: NYPD Fingerprint Database Taken Offline to Thwart Ransomware