118/68 Wednesday, March 26, 2025
Ukrzaliznytsia, Ukraine’s national railway operator, has been hit by a large-scale cyberattack that brought down its online ticketing system, affecting both mobile apps and the official website. The disruption forced a surge of passengers to physical ticket counters, causing overcrowding, delays, and widespread frustration among travelers across the country.
Despite the outage, Ukrzaliznytsia confirmed that train operations remain unaffected, with all services running on schedule. The company has deployed additional staff at ticket booths to handle the sudden spike in demand and advised passengers who purchased tickets online in advance to use the PDF copies sent via email or arrive at the station at least 20 minutes before departure to receive assistance. Military personnel impacted by the incident were allowed to purchase tickets directly from train conductors onboard.
In its latest statement, Ukrzaliznytsia described the attack as “systematic and multi-layered” and confirmed it is working with cybersecurity experts from the SBU Cyber Department and CERT-UA (Computer Emergency Response Team of Ukraine) to close security gaps and restore affected systems. While no specific timeline for recovery has been provided, the organization emphasized that failover mechanisms and resilience protocols, developed from previous cyberattack experiences, were immediately activated. This allowed the railway to continue functioning despite ongoing cyber and physical threats amid the war.
Source https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/cyberattack-takes-down-ukrainian-state-railways-online-services/
