SHARE
COPY LINK

TRAIN

Teens admit to ‘hacker attack’ on Swedish rail

A group of 16-year-olds claimed responsibility for a series of hacking attacks this week, which among other things closed down train ticketing services across the country.

Teens admit to 'hacker attack' on Swedish rail

The teens admitted to the attacks via a website on Friday, according to Sweden’s TV4 news. The hacks, believed to be in the form of DDOS attacks, shuttered the websites of train operators SJ, as well as those of south Swedish public transit operator Skånetrafiken, Region Skåne, and Sweden’s alcohol retail monopoly Systembolaget.

A DDOS attack entails a website being bombarded with communication requests so that the servers become overloaded and the site crashes.

Lars Förstell, a spokesman at the Malmö police, chose not to comment on whether the teenagers’ claims were credible.

“Right now we’re putting a lot of resources into this so we can get to the bottom of it quickly,” he told TV4.

“It’s serious criminal activity to go after societal functions such as Region Skåne, so we are working intensively on this,” he added.

Region Skåne is self-governing authority of Skåne, the southernmost county of Sweden, and is responsible for managing the region’s public health system.

The attacks also took down government-owned rail operator SJ on Wednesday and through Thursday, making it impossible for passengers to purchase train tickets online or at ticket machines at stations around the country.

Lars-Göran Emanuelson, an expert at the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (Myndigheten för samhällsskydd och beredskap, MSB), said on Thursday that such attacks are “not uncommon” and that the goals of the attackers can vary.

“I could only speculate about the reason behind this specific attack,” he told the TT news agency after SJ was hit. “But it’s usually based on some kind of displeasure.”

TT/The Local/og

Follow The Local on Twitter

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

TRAVEL NEWS

Swedish rail company SJs site crashes on Christmas tickets release

The booking site of Sweden's state-owned rail company SJ crashed on Tuesday evening after the company released long-awaited tickets for the Christmas period.

Swedish rail company SJs site crashes on Christmas tickets release

The company on Tuesday night released tickets for the period from December 11th to March 12th next year, only to see the site crash under the volume of booking requests. 

“There are enormous amounts of customers who want to buy tickets, even though it’s the middle of the night,” Lina Edström, a press officer for the company said shortly after midnight. “The home page quite simply can’t cope with responding to so many requests at the same time. 

The site started to work again a few hours later, only to crash once again as people woke up and started booking on Wednesday morning. 

“The reports we are getting is that it’s working for some people and not for others. That’s what we’re seeing as Sweden wakes up and more and more people try and get onto the site,” said Jonas Olsson, another press officer at 7.30am. 

READ ALSO:

The release of Christmas tickets in Sweden has been severely delayed because of late publication of the Swedish Transport Administration train plan for 2023, which coordinates the times for all passenger and goods trains in Sweden. 

The train plan should have been published at the start of August, giving companies 18 weeks to set tickets from December 10th. It was only released on October 19th. The administration said that it has had problems due to change over to a digital system. 

Many customers have been complaining that they have seen prices for Christmas trips double in the time it has taken them to book a ticket. 

Olsson told the TT newswire that SJ’s pricing system is based on the level of demand. 

“I understand the frustration, and we may well look at this going forward,” he said. “But even if many people have ended up in this situation, there are many others who have been able to buy cheaper tickets.” 

SHOW COMMENTS