OV San Francisco held hostage by hackers

- Residents of San Francisco could have sat free travel on the Muni, the local subway system. The reason: the ticket machines were hijacked by hackers using so-called ransomware.

Ransomware is malicious software that encrypts all data on a computer. Then the victim must pay ransom to regain access to the files.

Typically, consumers are especially victims of such attacks. It is not clear exactly how the ransomware managed to infiltrate all the terminals of the system. Employees of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency had all weekend trying to get things back on track.

As a precaution, however, the company decided on Saturday but open to put the gates and to make all residents and visitors to the city free use of the subway.