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Ransomware Compromises San Francisco's Mass Transit System (cbslocal.com)
Buses and light rail cars make San Francisco's "Muni" fleet the seventh largest mass transit system in America. But yesterday its arrival-time screens just displayed the message "You Hacked, ALL Data Encrypted" -- and all the rides were free, according to a local CBS report shared by RAYinNYC:
Inside sources say the system has been hacked for days. The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency has officially confirmed the hack, but says it has not affected any service... The hack affects employees, as well. According to sources, SFMTA workers are not sure if they will get paid this week. Cyber attackers also hit Muni's email systems.
Though the article claims "The transit agency has no idea who is behind it, or what the hackers are demanding in return," Business Insider reports "The attack seems to be an example of ransomware, where a computer system is taken over and the users are locked out until a certain amount of money is sent to the attacker." In addition, they're reporting the attack "reportedly included an email address where Muni officials could ask for the key to unlock its systems."
One San Francisco local told CBS, "I think it is terrifying. I really do I think if they can start doing this here, we're not safe anywhere."
Though the article claims "The transit agency has no idea who is behind it, or what the hackers are demanding in return," Business Insider reports "The attack seems to be an example of ransomware, where a computer system is taken over and the users are locked out until a certain amount of money is sent to the attacker." In addition, they're reporting the attack "reportedly included an email address where Muni officials could ask for the key to unlock its systems."
One San Francisco local told CBS, "I think it is terrifying. I really do I think if they can start doing this here, we're not safe anywhere."
You still have to pay for buses.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
...I don't mean running everything on OpenBSD literally, though it's an idea. I mean, "when do we get really serious about security?" Again and again, we find major hacks that are not the result of super-hackers defeating valiant protective efforts, it's script kiddies defeating idiots who kind of deserved it. The Sony hack came with many stories of multiple executives demanding the network be multiply-holed so that they could watch their favourite videos or whatever, hit their favourite sites.
I'm reading Andrew Ginter's book on SCADA security right now and reflecting on the insanity that there are SCADA systems, of all programming, being written on Windows, at all. There's one place the OpenBSD suggestion is quite serious. But even "OpenBSD" is just a buzzword unless you run your operations with security on your mind at all times. Schnier reduces this "mindfulness" argument to "read your logs", said it in three words.
Most of this stuff is not actually that *hard*...it requires *diligence* and *discipline*, but not nuclear science.
disclosure: i worked as a contractor for LA Metro.
its arrival-time screens just displayed the message "You Hacked, ALL Data Encrypted"
not a hard feat to pull off. the data thats shown on these screens is either dynamically generated by track signal data thats processed through SCADA and into a windows system, or you can issue an override screen for construction/etc...removing this screen should not be hard.
and all the rides were free
there is no magic button to make all rides free centrally. This was likely done by Muni as a last ditch effort because their card transaction databases were offline or the system that handles accounting for this database was offline due to the hack. Muni simply put their turnstiles into bypass mode and sent their fare enforcement officers home for the day. it means when they run their fare-jump report for the month, theyll have to adjust for the days they had open fare points.
"The transit agency has no idea who is behind it, or what the hackers are demanding in return,"
nothing. chances are great they didnt expect to get this far. its possible the warning on muni transit screens is a side-effect of a wallpaper or start screen that machines are now forced into depending on what model of annunciation system they purchased. if thats the case, reimaging the screens will take 2-3 hours and can all be done centrally. as for the accounting database for oyster/muni cards, thats an easy restore from backup or calling transactions back from their VAN provider (value added networks, generally operated by IBM or Cisco.)
as for people worrying about getting paid, this happens a lot. ive once shut down live map systems on a handful of busses to upgrade the video drivers, and by the end of the day there was a rumor spreading that the payroll department was hacked. Drivers/operators are not brilliant minds.
Good people go to bed earlier.
BART gets pranked.
This.
It's a goddam computer!
This crap about encrypting every file on board should not be allowed without two-level authentication.
A fucking computer knows when commands are coming from a program or initiated by a keyboard.
This is like burglary when there are no locks on the doors.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Even beyond that, systems that can be so completely broken are typically fragile systems, systems that break in ordinary use. As an example, here's a standard SQL injection, which was present all through a system I worked on recently:
SET lastname='$FORM_LASTNAME'
Sure that can be leveraged by an attacker, but what happens when the user's last name is O'Reilly? O'Reilly can't sign up for the service.
That example is typical. Code that's easily hacked is fragile, poor quality code in general, in most cases. Fixing security isn't JUST fixing security. Code that can't be broken is code that doesn't break.
I don't care how clever you all think you are, you cannot design a system that cannot be hacked.
We've gone far too far, hooking up control and command to the internet. We did it to fire people and save money, or at least divert the money once given to ticket takers to computer companies.
So, this is what the future is.
No foreigner would write "You hacked", no matter how poor their English is.
All your bus are belong to us
Isn't this the place that arrested its systems administrator because he wanted to keep the system password secret?
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
"All your bus are belong to us"
And I had to run out of mod points NOW?!
-- sigs cause cancer.
Unlike you, I'm a user advocate.
It's our goddam computers. Our coworkers just want to do their job.
We are on the expense side of they ledger and they make the money.
Blaming users is useless as tits on a boar.
How about we geniuses do our job and block this nonsense?
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.