Romanian hackers charged with disabling DC police cameras during inauguration

Two Romanian men have been charged with illegally disabling more than one hundred computers associated with the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) in the days just before President Trump’s inauguration, according to a police press release.

Mihai Alexandru Isvanca, 25, and Eveline Cismaru, 28, of Romania, were arrested last week at the Otopeni airport in Bucharest, Romania, according to a release issued Thursday afternoon by D.C. police. The two are charged with “conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit various forms of computer fraud.”

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An affidavit obtained by CNN last week states that the two are accused of disabling 123 of the city’s 187 outdoor police security cameras between Jan. 12 and Jan. 15. Trump’s inauguration took place on Jan. 20.

The arrests were made with the assistance of The Netherland’s National High Tech Crimes Unit, the U.K.’s National Crime Agency and Metropolitan Police, as well as Romania’s national police force, according to the police statement.

The Secret Service was aware of the hack and alerted the public in January, but the suspects have until now been unknown. The two are also accused of spreading ransomware, or malware that is used to hold valuable data hostage for money.

The two planned to target at least 179,000 email addresses with ransomware, according to police. An undisclosed amount of email addresses were afflicted with the ransomware during the time the police computers were compromised.

The two remain in Romania while they await further legal developments, Isvanca in police custody and Cismaru on house arrest. If convicted, the pair face up to 20 years in prison.