Honolulu suffers major cyberattack on its transit system last week

Written by David C. Lester, Editor-in-Chief
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Cyberattack hits Oahu transit system
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Hawaii's island of Oahu suffered a massive cyberattack on its transit system last Thursday, Dec. 9, at 1:00 am.

Although the rail network did not appear to be hit, we’re covering this story because of the grave threat that cyberattacks pose to all transportation systems, including rail. The Board of Water Supply and Emergency Medical Services were also hit. Part of the attack was focused on employee time-keeping services for workers at these agencies, according to the Honolulu Star Advertiser

The administrative and operating servers of Oahu’s Transit Services that support TheBus and TheHandi-Van segments of the agency’s service were also hit. Officials suspect this could be a ransomware attack, where the hackers lock up a system and demand money in order to release the system back to the controlling agency. Other cyberattacks are designed to damage infrastructure, but this does not appear to be the case in this incident.

Roger Morton, the Director of the Honolulu Department of Transportation Services said that “multiple servers at the Oahu Transit Service administrative offices stopped operating and were shut down. There were attempts to log in and correct it, and those were unsuccessful. Technical support people came in . . . and found they couldn’t restart the servers.”

Morton also said that “We do not have any specific demand for money . . . but [this attack] has the trappings of being a ransomware attack.” The FBI, Secret Service, and Honolulu Police Department are all investigating.

The agency reassured the public that no personal information has been compromised, as the servers that retain this information are not connected to the Honolulu city servers.

RT&S has reached out to the Honolulu Department of Transportation Services for additional comment, and will update this story as soon as we receive it. Our understanding at this point, though, is that the impacted servers are still down.

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