Germany’s state-owned rail operator Deutsche Bahn said it is facing a large-scale cyberattack that has disrupted ticket booking and inquiry systems across its network, though customer data has not been stolen.
The company announced Wednesday afternoon that the attack was significant in scope and specifically targeted Deutsche Bahn’s IT infrastructure. According to a spokesperson, defensive mechanisms were activated to fend off the assault, and there is no evidence that customer information was compromised.
The attacks began around midday Tuesday and caused widespread service disruptions later in the day. Customers were unable to book tickets or access travel information through official channels, instead encountering error messages in place of journey details. The disruption affected both the DB Navigator mobile app and the company’s website.
Some of the service interruptions continued into Wednesday, although systems were temporarily restored later in the afternoon. However, Deutsche Bahn warned that additional waves of attacks could occur, potentially leading to renewed restrictions.
The company said the prolonged recovery time was due to the attack’s wave-like nature.
According to Deutsche Bahn, the incident involved a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack. In such attacks, thousands of compromised computers or devices flood a website or application with massive volumes of simultaneous requests, overwhelming servers and rendering services inaccessible.
To users, the site appears offline, even though it has not been technically destroyed. DDoS attacks are commonly used to extort companies, disrupt operations, or exert political pressure.
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