Ransomware has blocked an essential tool for the logistics of Denmark’s main railway company. This is the first time that a hack has blocked all travel nationwide.
All trains stopped. In Denmark, DSB, the main railway operating company – equivalent to SNCF – was the victim of an impressive cyberattack on October 29, 2022, paralyzing the country’s entire railway network for several hours. The hackers trapped Supeo, a software contractor used by the company’s employees, explain the national media. Train drivers use it to access live operational information, such as work information and speed limits.
Just block this tool and the whole gear will stop. The operation is not very innovative either, since the company in charge of the software suffered ransomware, forcing it to close all the servers as a security measure. The app suddenly crashed for all drivers, forcing them to stop trains as a safety measure.
No known groups of hackers have come forward, so we don’t know who was responsible for the attack. The Danish company confirmed that it was a criminal attack. The rail network resumed its rhythm at the end of the day, but the fault is now clearly visible to all hackers.
The rails in the sights of the pirates
The consequences of this attack in Denmark are still unknown, but it is not the first time that a railway company has been the victim of a cyberattack. Train display systems were hacked in Italy last March, while the ticket sales system in the UK was crippled by ransomware a year ago. Belarusian hacktivists had also blocked the national rail network earlier in the year, when the Minsk regime was transporting weapons to help Russia attack kyiv, the Ukrainian capital.
Hundreds of thousands of impacted users, high media visibility, are two arguments that make railway companies a prime target for hackers. The United States took the lead this month: the authority in charge of transport security published a new directive to strengthen the cyber protection of the network. A similar cyberattack on French soil could be catastrophic: the SNCF manages 4 million passengers daily and the slightest disruption immediately disrupts the journey of hundreds of thousands of people.
