Public Transportation “Deutschlandticket” Launch in Germany Disrupted by Ransomware Attack

June 28, 2023

INCIDENT

Hannover transport company Üstra suffered a cyberattack with significant operational fallout. The display boards at stations and railways as well as email and telephone traffic in customer service only partially worked throughout the weekend. Since then, Üstra employees have probably been trying feverishly to get the computer systems under control before the planned start of sales of the "Deutschlandticket" on Monday. That didn't work.

The hackers penetrated the IT systems with a contaminated email attachment that encrypts files. Üstra did not want to say anything about the ransom demand for investigative reasons.

Incident Date

March 31, 2023

Location

Germany

Estimated Cost

Ticket sales discontinued - nationwide campaign disrupted.

Victims

Threat Source

No threat source identified