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The Bucharest Court of Appeals admitted on Tuesday an extradition request filed by the US for two Romanians charged for allegedly hacked into the Washington DC Police surveillance cameras, Mihai Alexandru Isvanca, 25, and Eveline Cismaru, 28, but in the case of the young man they postponed the handing over until a case filed with the Bacau Office of the Directorate for Investigation of Organised Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT) is closed, or in case of conviction, until his release.
The court also ordered the release of Mihai Alexandru Isvanca, who was placed on pretrial detention on December 16. As far as Eveline Cismaru is concerned, the judges decided to keep in place her provisional house arrest to be handed over by March 14. The decision is not final.
According to the a press statement released on December 28, 2017 by the United States Attorney's Office, District of Columbia, a criminal complaint and arrest warrants were unsealed back then charging two Romanian nationals with a conspiracy to illegally access approximately 123 computers associated with Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) surveillance cameras and to use those computers in connection with a scheme to distribute ransomware in January 2017.
As described in the affidavit in support of the complaint, on January 12, 2017, the Secret Service was notified that a number of MPD surveillance cameras had been compromised. Agents from the Washington Field Office immediately launched an investigation. The investigation uncovered information that the MPD surveillance camera computers were compromised between January 9 and January 12, 2017, and that ransomware variants called 'cerber' and 'dharma' had been stored on the computers. Other evidence in the investigation revealed a scheme to distribute ransomware by email to at least 179,000 email addresses.
This case was of the highest priority due to its impact on the Secret Service's protective mission and its potential effect on the security plan for the 2017 Presidential Inauguration.
According to the statement, in partnership with MPD's Chief Technology Office, the Secret Service and MPD quickly ensured that the surveillance camera system was secure and operational prior to the Inauguration and continued to investigate the criminal offenses charged.
