The travelers were able to enjoy free of charge transport due to a hack that has paralyzed the machinery of the agency managing the public transport of the city.
” You have been hacked, all the data is encrypted. “ This is the message that appeared on Friday 25 November, on the screens of the employees of the Municipal Transportation Agency (MTA), in charge of public transport in San Francisco.
As reported in the San Francisco Chronicle and the San Francisco examiner, even if this hacking has not disrupted the movement of transport, it has enabled users to travel free of charge on Friday night and Saturday. the ” there has been no impact on the transport service, confirmed a spokesman for the MTA, quoted by the Guardian. in But we’ve opened the portals as a precaution, to minimize the impact on users. “The machines selling tickets were also out of service, although we do not know if it was a direct result of piracy, or of a decision of the MTA.
Software racket
The agency, which ensures that the personal data of the travellers have not been affected, refuses for the moment to say more about the nature of the piracy of which she was the victim, the time of the survey. Nevertheless, the process looks very much like a software racket (ransomware), which is to encrypt the data on a computer until the victim agrees to pay a ransom to unlock them.
The message that is displayed on computers included as well an email address, contacted The examiner. In broken English, the owner of the address in question has agreed to respond in writing to the log. ” We do it for the money, and nothing else “, he argued, explaining that the transport network of San Francisco was not directly referred to.
According to him, an employee has in fact downloaded the malware, which would have been enough to affect the whole system. the ” Our software tries to infect everything it finds “, he said. He also stressed that it demanded 100 bitcoins, or approximately 73 000 (€69,000).
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