The Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) hit by a ransomware attack

A ransomware attack hit the systems at the Toronto Transit Commission public transportation agency and disrupted its operations.

The Toronto Transit Commission announced on Friday that its systems have been infected with ransomware, the attack began on Thursday night and disrupted its activities. At this time, no ransomware gang has taken responsibility for the attack.

TTC spokesman, Stuart Green, initially declared that the attack had no significant impact on the transit service, but things have gotten worse since Friday.

“Impact was minimal until midday today (Friday) when hackers broadened their strike on network servers,” reads a press release published by the agency.

The security breach impacted the agency’s internal email server, the Wheel-Trans bookings, the vehicle information on platform screens, apps, and the TTC Vision communication system, along with other internal systems.

The drivers were forced to communicate using a classic radio-based communication system.

The TTC also announced to have canceled a Saturday subway closure on Line 1 between St. Clair and College stations which was going to be used to complete track work.

“The full extent of the attack is being looked into and the TTC is working with law enforcement and cybersecurity experts on this matter. The City of Toronto’s IT Services department has also been consulted.” continues the statement.

The public transportation routes were not impacted by the incident. TTC reported the incident to the authorities and an investigation is still ongoing.

This isn’t the first ransomware attack that hit the public transportation systems in Canada. In October 2020, an attack hit Montreal’s STM, and two months later another attack hit Metro Vancouver’s transportation agency TransLink.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, ransomware)

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Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.