Within a few days, two serious IT failures, combined with the loss of important services for customers: that was the case at SBB this week, but also in 2021.
Watson checked with the media agency and also inquired whether the SBB – as the NZZ reported in the spring of 2022 – still uses Russian software.
What happened?
This week the worm was in the computer systems of the Swiss railways. The “Blick” wrote about an “IT chaos at the SBB”, scoreboards failed, online ticket sales were not possible.
The problem was solved on Wednesday night, the SBB announced. But the next day, the SBB website posted another outage report.
As those responsible now explain, there were no hackers making any mischief. Nor was it a ransomware attack, SBB spokesman Martin Meier assured us on request.
There is no connection between the IT failures. The same systems were partially affected, but from a different cause, Meier said.
Why did the IT failures occur?
You should know that the outage on Tuesday was much bigger – it lasted several hours and affected several IT systems at SBB, including internal processes.
The SBB spokesperson confirmed what inside-it.ch reported on Tuesday about the IT outage: that “an error in the storage system was detected and then fixed”. The exact reason for this is now being “analyzed in detail”.
The SBB spokesperson explains the relatively short malfunction on Thursday:
Several applications such as the SBB mobile app and the sbb.ch website were unavailable to SBB customers for approximately 20 minutes.
Like 2021?
As early as 2021, there were two major IT failures at SBB in one week. At the time, it was said that one of the triggers was the failure of an IT service that was “responsible for registering system users”. According to the SBB spokesperson, it is impossible for this problem to occur again.
What about the Russian software?
In March, the “NZZ am Sonntag” pointed out that the SBB wanted to cooperate with a Russian company “to monitor railway conditions” and would continue to do so – unless sanctions against Russia were tightened over the war in Ukraine.
SBB spokesperson Martin Meier now explains:
Last March’s media report stated that Russian programmers had limited access to the SBB system for maintenance work. Is this still the case?
The SBB spokesperson:
There is no cause for concern because:
On the one hand, services can be limited, but “there is also a risk that suppliers could be infiltrated on-site and act as a gateway to a company’s IT”.
Another risk is that employees could be forced to manipulate the software they provide and the IT systems or infrastructure to which they have access.”
The federal government is not aware of specific cases.
sources
- inside-it.ch: Major IT outage at SBB: ticket sales and scoreboards down (report of Nov 8)
- blick.ch: IT chaos at SBB (post from Nov. 8)
- sbb.ch: IT malfunction at SBB solved again
- nzz.ch: Swiss data in Russia: Federal government warns (March 2022 report)
Source: Watson
I am Dawid Malan, a news reporter for 24 Instant News. I specialize in celebrity and entertainment news, writing stories that capture the attention of readers from all walks of life. My work has been featured in some of the world’s leading publications and I am passionate about delivering quality content to my readers.
