Hackers Infiltrate Sacramento Transit System And Demand $8,000
No data was stolen, and the agency is currently restoring the system.
By Admin on November 21, 2017
The Sacramento Regional Transit system computers were hacked on Saturday, Nov. 18, with the hackers threatening to erase more data unless an $8,000 (one bitcoin) ransom is paid. SacRT did not respond to the payment demand.
According to the Sacramento Bee, the attack erased parts of the programs that affect internal operations, like the “ability to use computers to dispatch employees and assign buses for routes.”
Regional Transit officials report no data was stolen, and the web homepage along with the systems for processing credit card payments were shut down. The agency is working on further securing the system to prevent future attacks.
Chief operating officer Mark Lonergan said:
“We caught it early [Sunday] morning. We took all our systems offline [and determined what data was erased]. We are restoring everything now and bringing it up online.”
Lonergan also stated that the agency was able to figure out how the hackers entered the system and what happened during the hack:
“That is how we know no data exited. This was about destruction.”
The light rail and buses are continuing to run on a normal schedule. It may be several days before the system is restored. The agency is planning on bringing in an expert to make sure an infiltration is less likely to happen again in the future.
