This content was created by Robert Siciliano. This content was uploaded by Robert Siciliano. This is a YouTube news segment titled "FoxBoston Ransomware hits Vehicle Inspections" (Boston-area coverage) dated May 6, 2021. The clip is a live news report about a ransomware/cyberattack on A+ Technologies that has shut down vehicle inspection systems across Massachusetts, delaying inspections and impacting local auto shops and safety. Participants include anchors Vanessa and Scott McDonnell (reporting live from Norwood), quotes from Governor Charlie Baker, on-the-ground comments from local shop workers (labeled Speaker C and Speaker D), and cybersecurity expert Robert Siciliano (identified as CEO of ProtectNowLLC.com) who provides analysis of the attack and its cleanup. The piece is in English and focuses on operational, financial, and safety consequences for drivers and businesses.
Chapters
It will be at least another week until shops and businesses across Massachusetts will be able to carry out vehicle inspections. Boston 25 News anchor Scott McDonnell is live in Norwood tonight. And Scott, you've been following this story for over a week now. A lot of questions still surrounding this, and one is whether any personal information was compromised here.
Yeah, Vanessa, Governor Baker talked about that today. He said that no personal information ended up in the public domain due to this cyber attack, but that's just one of several issues facing drivers —another week, no inspections.
I've been doing inspection for past 20 years, over 20 years. I never seen this like this so bad.
All the stations across the Commonwealth still locked up after a cyberattack on A+ Technologies, who operate the software on computers like this at auto shops.
This really is a big deal.
It's proving to be a tricky fix. Robert Siciliano, CEO of ProtectNowLLC.com, says it's often the way it goes after such a widespread malware attack act like this.
There is an axiom, um, I guess, uh, from the Winter Hill Gang: the deeper you dig, the more bodies you find, right? And as they dig into this, uh, they're going to find— and they are finding— more and more problems, more and more issues, which means that it's going to take that much more time to essentially excavate or clean up the mess. And that really is going to affect millions of vehicles on the road.
It's affecting bottom lines in a big way at businesses like Canton Auto Service and Auto Body.
Business comes in People fail, they need tires, we sell them tires. They need suspension work, we do suspension. They have a check engine light, we fix the emission problem. So that will— that's basically what keeps our door flowing, business coming out door. What happened is we lost 60% of that business because we cannot have the car to be able to do the inspection.
Governor Baker asked about that very issue today.
We fully expect the vendor, um, to, uh, to find a way to compensate many of the folks, at the dealer and the service station level have been horribly inconvenienced by this. Then there are the safety issues.
Thousands of cars going uninspected and still driving around on the streets.
I have people all of a sudden, the brake line pops out of nowhere because they're not having their cars checked. That's also another kind of cause a lot of safety issue for other people too, because the car is not coming in the shop. When it doesn't come in the shop for us to check it, so we can't keep other people safe.
Now I asked the state what happens if you're driving out of state with an expired sticker. Just got a response back not long ago, want to read that. They said it's recommended you carry pertinent info such as website posts or media stories that speak to the inspection system outage if you are driving with an expired sticker. So probably not a bad idea to print out a couple articles about this and leave it in your glove compartment. Reporting live in Norwood tonight, Scott McDonald, Boston 25 News.
