Attack On Transport For London Exposed Passenger Bank Details

Uploaded on 2024-09-17 in NEWS-Cybersecurity News, FREE TO VIEW, BUSINESS-Services-Transport & Travel

The recent cyber attack on Transport for London (TfL) is much worse than first thought. TfL has now said. This comes after it was revealed a teenager had been arrested in connection with the hack.

Names and phone numbers of passengers are thought to have been obtained, including some personal data from Oyster cards and Contactless bank cards used to make journeys on the capital’s public transport network and 30,000 employees' passwords will need to be reset via in-person appointments.

The hack is understood to have potentially exposed the bank account details of about 5,000 passengers, either via activity on their Oyster card account or refund data. This includes account numbers and sort codes.

In addition, an unknown number of passengers who had signed up to TfL email alerts and are thought to have had their name, home address or email account exposed. TfL will contact the affected customers and it is taking immediate measures to improve online security.

In the latest development, the UK National Crime Agency (NCA) has said that a 17-year-old male has been arrested on suspicion of offences in relation to the Computer Misuse Act. The teenager, who was arrested in Walsall on 5 September and has been questioned by NCA officers and released on bail.

This cyber attack has wider implications for the roll-out of contactless train travel outside London. TfL has been fitting contactless ticket barriers to about 100 stations and this has now been paused.

While the network continues to run, parts of the TfL IT infrastructure are offline. Live tube arrival information isn't available, applications for new Oyster photocards have been suspended, and refunds for incomplete pay-as-you-go journeys made using contactless and the rail staff have limited access to systems.

Image: Ben Wicks

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