A recent cyber-attack on Dutch authorities caused ‘dozens’ of traffic enforcement cameras to be knocked offline.
Last month, the Netherlands Public Prosecution Service (OM) was hacked by an unknown threat actor reportedly exploiting a vulnerability in Citrix NetScaler.
In a statement, the ministry said that following the breach they would be ‘disconnected from the internet’ for several weeks in order to conduct an investigation and analysis.
Last week, the NL Times reported that this has caused, ‘several’ speed cameras and average speed cameras along A and N roads in the Netherlands to be knocked completely offline.
The OM confirmed the cameras had been disabled when they were forced to disconnect its systems from the internet. It’s important to note the cameras themselves were not hacked: the cameras are down because OM’s systems are still offline.
The problem is that they cannot easily be turned back on again. A spokesperson told the NL Times: “Besides the fact that it’s not possible, [to turn the cameras back on] because the systems are down, we also don’t want to try because of the hack.”
As you would expect, the attack has generated a lot of attention from speed happy motorists. One X user wrote: “Can we have some of that much feared Russian cyberattack in the rest of Europe too?”
However, the attack underscores the fragility of key public infrastructure in the face of nation-state linked cyber-attacks.
Reddit user CoolTwo5728 wrote: “Whatever you believe about speed cameras, this was a test on attacking public infrastructure. You better believe they will expand and go after something more meaningful in the future.”
The attack can be traced back to a vulnerability in the Citrix NetScaler ADC and NetScaler Gateway. The vulnerability (CVE-2025-6543) is rated as critical and was first disclosed on June 25 by Citrix. A patch is now available which should be deployed immediately.
Cyber-analysts based in the Netherlands have linked the attacks to Russian-based hacking groups. They reportedly targeted dozens of organizations in an attempt to exploit the vulnerability.
According to the NL Times, the hackers had access to OM systems for about three weeks. The vulnerability was patched seven-days after it was first disclosed, giving the attackers enough time to break into the network.
Cybersecurity Dive reports that there are still more than 4,000 internet-connected NetScaler instances that are vulnerable to the CVE-2025-6543 vulnerability.
Read Further
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