Duo Deny LA traffic Hack Charges

A pair of Los Angeles traffic system engineers have been charged with manipulating traffic signals to disrupt transportation across the city in the run-up to a union protest last August.

Gabriel Murillo, 37 and Kartik Patel, 34, were each charged with one count of unauthorized access of a computer. Mutillo also faces an identity theft charge while Patel has been accused of four disruption of service offences. Prosecutors alleged the pair, engineers at in LA's Automated Traffic Surveillance Center, used purloined supervisor credentials to send commands to reprogram signal control boxes at four critical intersections.

Murillo allegedly accessed codes so that only he and Patel could make changes to the system, blocking other workers from sorting out the escalating chaos. The hack succeeded despite plans by managers to temporarily prevent any engineers making changes to the city's traffic control systems.