San Francisco's Municipal Railway (MUNI) systems were violated on Friday afternoon and began to distribute free rides to all passengers, with the gates open until late Saturday.
Although the hacker who managed to breach the company did not reveal his name, he did leave one message who demanded a ransom from San Francisco authorities to restore the service by decrypting its systems.
MUNI station displays showed the message:
"You Hacked, ALL Data Encrypted. Contact For Key(cryptom27@yandex.com)ID:681 ,Enter,” ενώ μηχανήματα εκτύπωναν εισιτήρια με σύντομα messages, such as “Out of Service” and “Metro Free.”
After contacting the hacker, the San Francisco authorities have confirmed that the hacker sought an agreement with MUNI to restore the metro services.
MUNI, for its part, said that transport services were not affected in any way and that the gates were deliberately open "to minimize customer impact."
"As the investigation is still ongoing, no further details will be given at this point," said MUNI spokesman Paul Rose.
Η talks between the service and the hacker continued, and in an email, the attacker calling himself “Andy Saolis” demanded 100 Bitcoins (or $73.000) to remove the malware.
At the moment, all the station's automatic ticket systems do not work, as MUNI staff are still trying to cope with the attack and remove the malware.
