When Malware Does Some Unintentional Good

There aren’t many good things to be said about malware but once in a while it can accomplish some unintentional good:

Acting Deputy Commissioner Ross Guenther told reporters on Friday that 55 cameras had been exposed to the ransomware virus, but they’ve now determined 280 cameras had been exposed. The cameras are not connected to the internet, but a maintenance worker unwittingly connected a USB stick with the virus on it to the camera system on June 6.

Fryer said that about 1643 tickets would be withdrawn – up from the 590 that police had announced on Friday – and another five and a half thousand tickets pending in the system would be embargoed.

It sounds like the police department is planning on reissuing many of the tickets after it has [pre]determined that the malware didn’t actually alter anything. But it’s nice to see malware actually attacking a legitimate target even if it wasn’t intentional.