Don't get hacked like Westcat

We have solutions to make it far less likely this will happen to you. Call us and we will do a better job than whoever is managing this.

Recently a decision was made to change IT services providers, While microServices  was in charge no incidents like this ever occured. There is a qualitative difference in IT consultants. This vulnerabiity was identified and a remedy proposed over 6 months ago. What price bad press and customer inconvenience? "The increasingly complex IT infrastructure at Westcat requires a significantly increased level of support" This advice was ignored.

The only shame is that we did so much better and now what we carefully built is falling apart.

http://www.insidebayarea.com/news/ci_19831948

SHAMING HACKERS: Officials of West Contra Costa bus agency WestCAT were baffled after someone hacked into the Wi-Fi systems of two Lynx commuter buses last week, unhooking them from cyberspace indefinitely.

Hoping at least to shame the perp or perps into ceasing and desisting, they tweeted to the world: "The Wi-Fi on LYNX buses 200 & 202 has recently been hacked. Wi-Fi will be unavailable on theses buses until issue is resolved. We apologize."

"We " thought we'd at least make public the cause of the system being down in hopes of embarrassing the person responsible," WestCAT General Manager Charles Anderson explained. "It's hard to understand people and their motivations sometimes."

Wi-Fi is a much-appreciated convenience for Lynx commuters, WestCAT marketing coordinator Yvonne Morrow said. Lynx service, inaugurated in 2005, links the Hercules-Rodeo area with San Francisco's Transbay Terminal. Lynx

has offered free Wi-Fi service since 2007.

The damage was not necessarily inflicted by someone on the bus, Morrow said.

"Anyone near the vicinity of the bus while it is in operation could in theory find a way to use the Wi-Fi," she said. "It could even be from a car passing on the freeway or someone using a device at the transit center while the bus is running.

"The individual either mistakenly or maliciously changed the access passwords for both buses, and even the manufacturer cannot look at the router remotely," Morrow added.

Maintenance workers had to pull out the hacked units and send them back to the manufacturer to be wiped clean of their memory and reprogrammed. Meanwhile, the two buses will be WiFi-less for two weeks at least, Morrow said.

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Smile Yvonne, and hope the decision makers come to their senses.

 

 

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