Russia’s state-owned railway company, Russian Railways (RZD), reported a massive DDoS attack that took down its official website and mobile application.
“Our website and mobile application have been subjected to a massive DDoS attack. We are working to restore them as soon as possible,” RZD stated on Telegram on the morning of April 1.
JOIN US ON TELEGRAM
Follow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official.
Despite the cyberattack, the company said that ticket offices at stations were operating normally, and ticket sales were proceeding as usual.
By 3:28 p.m., RZD reported that online ticket sales had been restored.
“The operation of the RZD website has been restored. However, due to ongoing attacks and increased load on our information resources, some disruptions may still occur,” the company said.
RZD specialists, along with cybersecurity teams, are working to ensure stable access to the company’s online services, including the Russian Railways Passengers mobile application, as per the report.
On March 31, the Moscow Metro website experienced a disruption. A message from Ukrzaliznytsia (UZ), Ukraine’s state railway company, was briefly displayed on its homepage, reading:
“The application and ticket sales website have been restored, but disruptions in their work are still possible. We are currently stabilizing the systems.”
On March 23, Ukrzaliznytsia suffered a large-scale cyberattack that disabled nearly all of its online services. By the morning of March 27, UZ restored its online ticketing system in backup mode.
Kremlin Kicks Off 2025 Conscription – Seeks Huge Hike in Manpower Numbers
Other Topics of Interest
Kremlin Kicks Off 2025 Conscription – Seeks Huge Hike in Manpower Numbers
Kyiv protests the forced conscription of Ukrainian citizens of occupied territories into the Russian military to fight against their own countrymen.
However, the high demand following the system’s relaunch caused further disruptions in the application and ticket sales website.
Ukrzaliznytsia spokesperson Oleksandr Shevchenko told Kyiv Post that Russian hackers targeted the company to disrupt train schedules and destabilize control systems.
Their goal also included accessing the customer database, but they were unable to extract it, although they caused significant damage.
“They also didn’t manage to extract the customer database. But they did mess it up quite a bit,” Shevchenko told Kyiv Post via text. “It was undoubtedly the work of Russian hackers – there’s a clear Russian trace.”
He said that the attack aimed to interfere with train operations and reduce system control, but the trains continued to run on schedule, and Ukrzaliznytsia adapted to manage operations in the current conditions.
Ukrzaliznytsia Chairman Oleksandr Pertsovskyi called this attack a “complex, multi-layered cyberattack,” while Shevchenko described it as “record-breaking.”
Despite the attack, train traffic was not disrupted, passengers could still buy tickets at counters, and cargo traffic was shifted to paper-based documentation.