The vehicle inspection system in eight states, including Massachusetts, was hacked on March 31,
2021 and the system was offline for a few weeks. The vendor Applus has said that the incident was
the result of a malware attack, but very little beyond this is known. Research this incident in depth
and try to find out what really happened (vulnerability, attack vector, threat information, bad actor,
etc.) How was the system restored, and how were the issues of system integrity addressed? Is any
information available that describes the contingency planning that had been done by the vendor, or
at the state level, prior to the attack? Is there any information on what improvements have been
made as a result of this hack.
Here are some relevant links for this prompt:
https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/vehicle-inspections-in-multiple-states-3981143/
https://www.natlawreview.com/article/vehicle-inspections-multiple-states-disrupted-malware
https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/outage-in-mass-rmv-inspection-sticker-system-leaves-some-in-the-lurch/2349356/
https://www.mass.gov/news/update-on-massachusetts-motor-vehicle-inspections-0