‘Keys to the kingdom’: hackers who gained access to heart of London transport network jailed
Summary
Two teenage hackers broke into Transport for London’s computer systems in 2024, stealing data of millions of commuters and causing disruptions for disabled passenger services. They gained high-level access, which could have allowed them to shut down the transport network, and were later caught, pleaded guilty, and sentenced to over five years in prison each.Key Facts
- The hack happened over four days from August 31 to September 3, 2024.
- Millions of commuters’ data was stolen, and 27,000 TfL staff had to reset passwords.
- The dial-a-ride service for disabled passengers was temporarily unable to process bookings.
- The hackers had “domain admin” access, described as the “keys to the kingdom” of TfL’s system.
- TfL stopped the attack by shutting down parts of its systems.
- The hackers, Thalha Jubair (20) and Owen Flowers (19), were part of a hacker group called Scattered Spider.
- They amassed millions of dollars in cryptocurrency from their hacking activities.
- Both pleaded guilty and were sentenced to five and a half years in prison; Flowers was also sentenced for hacking US healthcare providers.
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