Multiple TransLink services still down due to ‘suspicious network activity’

NEW WESTMINISTER (NEWS 1130) — TransLink continues to investigate what it calls “suspicious network activity,” which led to the suspension of several services.

The investigation was announced Tuesday, but in a statement Wednesday, TransLink said, “Given this is an active investigation involving law enforcement authorities, we will be limiting our comment at this time.”

TransLink is continuing to investigate the suspicious activity detected on our network yesterday morning. Given this is an active investigation involving law enforcement authorities, we will be limiting our comment at this time.

— TransLink BC (@TransLink) December 2, 2020

As a result of the IT issues, transit users can’t use credit or debit cards at Compass vending machines.

The trip planner tool has been disabled, and passes and stored value may take longer than usual to load onto Compass cards.

The shutdown is being done as a precaution.

Credit card payments have been restored at the tap to pay fare gates and transit users can still use cash at the vending machines.

Don’t panic, says expert

Dominic Vogel with Cyber SC tells CityNews passengers don’t need to panic, despite the investigation into “suspicious network activity.”

“Organizations like transit work hard to address whatever the problem is,” he says.

Vogel says “suspicious activity” could boil down to a number of things.

“That could be anything from something non-suspicious like servers acting up, to malicious activity, cyber hackers, trying to bring down systems…the reason could be anywhere in-between.”

Despite what the suspicious activity entails, Vogel says TransLink should be as transparent as possible with the public.

“I would encourage TransLink to be more transparent, I don’t like it when companies hide behind vague statements, and they should do a better job of PR, the public relies on them, they need to be more transparent,” he explains.

Cybercrime is seeing an upward trend during the COVID-19 pandemic, Vogel adds.

“In COVID, we’re in a golden age of cybercrime, it’s the perfect storm. People are exhausted, tired, these mental distractions are allowing cybercrime to be successful, we’ve seen cybercrime triple in some sectors. If this is malicious, it doesn’t surprise me.”