Bernalillo County, the most populous county within New Mexico, was hit by a cyber attack on 5th January 2022. The largest target of this attack was the Metropolitan Detention Center in the Albuquerque area. The cyber attack in question was a form of ransomware that has affected significant portions of the detention center, namely the automatic door and camera systems. This has resulted in an emergency notice being issued to the federal courts due to a lapse in jail conditions.
As reported by The Albuquerque Journal and later by The Verge, inmate records have been left inaccessible by this attack alongside the incidents database that catalogues assaults, use of force, etc. and is believed to have been corrupted during this attack. While information about the origin of this ransomware and the specifics of the systems affected are not publicly available at this time, it should be noted that the inclusion of door systems would suggest that HMI (human machine interfaces) were amongst the targeted devices.
Ransomware attacks like this are gaining popularity once again, with Albuquerque being the 7th major US city to become a victim of an attack at this scale in the last 5 years. Atlanta and New Orleans are notable previous victims and Las Vegas narrowly missed an attack in 2020 by successfully taking action before systems were disrupted [source]. With the rise in ransomware attacks, systems in the industrial sector are becoming increasingly at risk due to the inter-connectivity of OT (Operational Technology) and IT (Information Technology) in many facilities. This bridge between infrastructures can allow malicious authors to conduct significant damage to those affected, as in the case with the Metropolitan Detention Center.
At Awen Collective we will be publishing more about these kinds of threats going forward. Many of these threats are not clear that they have, or could, affect Operational Technologies that you would typically find in sectors such as energy, water, transportation, manufacturing and smart cities. The OT systems often at risk include Industrial Automation Control Systems (IACS/ICS), Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA), Building Automation and Control Systems (BACS), Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) as well as Internet of Things (IoT) technologies. Awen is here not to use fear to sell, but to discuss with radical honesty the problems and the potential solutions. We have developed our Dot software to work with you to get 100% device visibility on your OT networks, and show you the potential vulnerabilities and their remedies.
This article was put together by Jamie Grant, a member of the tech team at Awen Collective.