UK's National Crime Agency has arrested two suspects who allegedly hacked the CCTV network of Washington and installed ransomware.
An NCA spokesperson confirmed the news via email to Bleeping Computer, "We can confirm that NCA officers executed a search warrant at an address in Natal Road, London SW16 on the evening of Thursday 19 January. A man and a woman were arrested and later bailed until April 2017. Enquiries are on-going and we are unable to provide further information at this time."
According to the British media, both the suspects are above 50, one is a British Man, while another one is a Swedish woman.
Both of them were arrested at the request of the US government. They are the main suspects of a cyber-attack that hit the US capital a week before President Trump's inauguration.
Investigators found out that they broke into the network of the CCTV of Washington, DC, and installed a ransomware behind it which affected 123 of 187 video recording systems, that is around 65% of all of the US capital's camera surveillance system.
The CCTV hijacks took place between January 12 and 15.
However, IT staff managed to uninstalled the ransomware and reinstalled software on all affected machines. As a result, city officials didn't had to pay the ransom demand. The CCTV systems were back and fully functional in time for President Trump's inauguration ceremony.
The investigation was done jointly by the Secret Service and the FBI. They found two different ransomware strains on the compromised systems.