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Alleged San Francisco Muni ‘Hacker’ Demanded $73,000 Ransom

posted by on Tuesday November 29 2016, @05:06AM   Printer-friendly
from the all-your-fare-are-belong-to-us dept.

Phoenix666 and -- OriginalOwner_ both sent in this story:

People using San Francisco's Muni public transportation, which consists of buses, streetcars, Metro light rail and cable cars, rode for free over the holiday weekend. [...] Some of those people thought the free rides were part of a Thanksgiving gift or "Black Friday deal," but anyone who happened to glance at San Francisco Muni station computer screens knew better. On Friday and Saturday, the screens all displayed:

You Hacked, ALL Data Encrypted, Contact For Key(cryptom27@yandex.com)ID:681 ,Enter Key.

[...] SFMTA spokesman Paul Rose said the hack was discovered on Friday, but all fare machines were back to normal on Sunday. The "Muni subway fare gates were locked in an open position and could not be electronically closed;" Rose claimed the fare gates were intentionally opened to promote free Muni service.

It was not a targeted attack, according to the San Francisco Examiner. After the news outlet contacted the Yandex email address listed in the ransom note, someone going by "Andy Saolis" claimed the ransomware "infected an admin level computer after someone at SFMTA downloaded a torrented computer file, a software keycode generator."

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29 2016, @08:46AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29 2016, @08:46AM (#434388)

    Don't you just love inputting loong random character strings to your programs or lugging around dongles or other such shite?

    You realize there is a better way?

  • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29 2016, @09:03AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29 2016, @09:03AM (#434390)

    Are you advocating for open source ransomware? Won't that kind of defeat the purpose?