Cyberattack on Delta smart alarm system paralyzes cars across Russia

Winter has hit Russia hard already, and now car owners across the country – those using a Delta smart alarm system – can’t unlock cars, stop active alarms, or even start their engines. A cyberattack is believed to be the cause.

Local media reported this week that car owners using Delta, a smart alarm system, couldn’t start their vehicles and faced other problems after the servers of the platform went down.

They did because of a cyberattack, the company soon confirmed. No major details have been provided but Delta said that on Monday, it experienced “a large-scale external attack” on its IT infrastructure. The hit disrupted app services.

Delta’s marketing director Valery Ushkov provided additional details in a video address, acknowledging the large scale of the incident.

“Our architecture was unable to withstand a well-coordinated attack coming from outside the country,” he said.

According to Ushkov, recovery was taking longer than expected because the company was still facing the risk of follow-up attacks while attempting to restore backups. Indeed, the Delta website is still down.

Russian-language Telegram outlet Baza reported that users began complaining that car alarm systems couldn’t be turned off. In some cases, vehicles couldn’t be unlocked. In some cars, engines shut down while in motion.

The Delta system allows car owners to track a car’s location, remotely start the car engine, or open the car door.

But users said they couldn’t do all that: some said they weren’t able to open their cars at all, and others reported that they needed to somehow bring their vehicles for reprogramming at the dealership.

The attack didn’t appear to impact systems managing home alarm systems. However, some users reported that alarm systems in homes and commercial buildings switched into emergency mode and couldn’t be deactivated.

Besides, Delta users may still face additional issues because the app keeps payment data – some customers are fearing that their personal and financial data might be or may already have been stolen.

The company insists, though, that it hasn’t so far detected any signs of a compromise of customer personal data. No known hacking group has taken credit for the attack.

The attack on Delta took place on the same day as a separate large-scale outage affected the Leonardo booking and check-in systems used by Russian airlines and airports. Ticket sales, refunds, and rebooking orders were temporarily disrupted.

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