San Francisco Municipal Transportation System Hacked on Black Friday; Hacker Demands Bitcoin Ransom?

Like out of a "Watch Dogs 2" game, commuters of San Francisco's Municipal Transportation System were disrupted amid the Black Friday sales after the railways system's ticketing machine got hacked.

According to The Wired, an unknown hacker locked the San Francisco Municipal Transport System's ticketing system, preventing riders from purchasing tickets. The hacker left a message saying "You hacked. ALL data encrypted" and demanded a 100 Bitcoin ransom.

Despite the attack, operations of the San Francisco Municipal Transport System did not stop and instead kept trains running for commuters to reach their destination free-of-charge. According to the San Francisco Examiner, a number of payment systems have already been restored and are operational as of Sunday.

The attack on the San Francisco Municipal Transportation System not only disrupted the railway's ticketing system but also the emailing system used by operators. The malware used by the unknown hacker was similar to "ransomware," an email-type malware that locks a user out of his account and asks for ransom, per report.

Bitcoin is a form of virtual currency that can be used for online transactions and was introduced in 2009 by an unknown programmer. 100 Bitcoins is equivalent to roughly $73,000. An earlier report noted that a representative said that the agency running the San Francisco Municipal Transport System has no intention of paying the Bitcoin ransom.

The agency handling the operations of the San Francisco Municipal Transport System have assured the commuting public that their personal information was not compromised during the attack and that in-house staff of the agency are recovering all systems from the malware attack. However, the hacker, only known as "Andy Saolis," released a threat that customer information has been compromised from the San Francisco Municipal Transport System attack.

The unknown hacker claims that they had gained access to a server of the San Francisco Municipal Transport System and had access to payment kiosks, internal automation, and even emails. The unknown hacker intends to release contracts, customer data, and other vital information they got from the hack. No reports of a new Bitcoin ransom was made in exchange for the information the unknown hacker got.

Cyber attacks on railway systems like what happened to the San Francisco Municipal Transport System could be dangerous and lead to potential dangers to the commuting public. Hackers can take control of train operations, giving them full control of train systems, report said.

Operations of the San Francisco Municipal Transport System were back to normal on Monday.