London public transport hit by cyber incident

Transport for London (TfL), the city’s transport authority, is battling an ongoing cyberattack. TfL runs three separate units that manage transport on London’s overground, underground and Crossrail transport systems. It serves around 8 million people in the London metropolitan area.

Transport for London said in a public notice:

“We are currently dealing with an ongoing cyber security incident. At this time there is no evidence that any customer data has been compromised and there is no impact on TfL services.

The security of our systems and customer data is very important to us and we have taken immediate steps to prevent further access to our systems.”

The incident did have some impact though, as TfL have taken the contactless ticketing website offline for “maintenance”. However, this maintenance was not announced earlier, which they probably would have done under normal circumstances.

Via the contactless website you can buy tickets online, top up public transport chip cards (Oystercards), view your travel history and request refunds.

In a short thread on X, TfL said it was working with the National Crime Agency and the National Cyber ​​Security Centre to investigate and respond to the incident.

Hi, thanks for your message. We are working to resolve this as quickly as possible. We need to complete our full review, but there is currently no evidence that any customer data has been compromised or that TfL services are being impacted. We are working closely with the

National Crime Agency and the National Cyber ​​​​Security Centre to respond to the incident. We continue to work to assist our customers here in the usual way. Thanks, SW.

According to security researcher Kevin Beaumont:

“Transport for London has a genuine internal security incident and is reverting to paper-based processes.”

With TfL largely silent on the incident, it is difficult to determine whether this disruption is the result of a ransomware attack or something else.

We will keep you informed as we learn more.

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