HPD investigates online outage for TheBus and TheHandi-Van

STAR-ADVERTISER / 2022 Officials are still working on fixing the online serv ­ices for TheBus, including its website, and other transit-related apps. Students board TheBus outside Kaimuki High School.

1 /1 STAR-ADVERTISER / 2022 Officials are still working on fixing the online serv ­ices for TheBus, including its website, and other transit-related apps. Students board TheBus outside Kaimuki High School.

The Honolulu Department of Transportation Serv ­ices was still trying Monday to determine the cause as well as the cure to restore its online, real-time schedules for TheBus and TheHandi-Van fleets.

However, this online outage may be the result of a full-fledged cyberattack.

In this instance it possibly was done with DragonForce ransomware—which essentially extorts money from victims by first locking companies or agencies out of their own computer systems—though that unconfirmed information is still under investiga ­-tion, according to DTS spokesperson Travis Ota.

“There is no confirmation on DragonForce ransomware yet, ” Ota told the Hono ­lulu Star-Advertiser via email Monday afternoon. Oahu Transit Serv ­ices Inc., or OTS, “is still working on the investigation. State and federal partners have been contacted.”

Since Saturday, OTS, the private company that manages the city’s bus and paratransit system, suffered service outages to thebus.org website (HEA, also known as Honolulu Estimated Arrival ) and related GPS services, the city says.

“OTS is still working on fixing the online services for TheBus, including the website, HEA, TheHandi-Van EVA, and real-time GPS services, which affects transit-related apps, ” Ota said.

He said that “the fix would require restarting the online servers, and ensuring that everything is back online and secure.” But as far as the timeliness of those repairs, he said that “there is no ETA at the moment.”

Meantime, the Honolulu Police Department is investigating. “OTS is currently working with appropriate federal agencies and HPD to identify and validate potential causes, ” Ota said.

Typically, the real-time GPS service provides information to apps, including DaBus app, Transit App and Google Maps, among others, according to Ota.

“This information is shared with these applications, so they can provide real-time bus information, ” he said, adding this includes location, route destination and on-time performance.

He stressed, however, that most riders will not be affected by these technical issues.

“Only riders of TheBus who were reliant on a transit app were affected, ” Ota said. “Since TheBus is a fixed-route system, riders would have to rely on the scheduled times.”

Other city transit services were not affected. “No outages related to this have affected Skyline, ” Ota confirmed.

And a related outage to the TheHandi-Van reservation center was restored Saturday morning, “And customers who had a reservation that morning /day were not affected, ” he said.

Problems with city transit’s communications system started early last week. On June 10, DTS announced that its phone system for TheBus and TheHandi-Van was back online after it too suffered technical difficulties for a time.

But Honolulu’s latest online outage also recalls a prior, suspected hack into TheBus’ online system.

On Dec. 9, 2021, an alleged cyberattack targeting OTS disabled the online servers to both administrative and operating access for TheBus and TheHandi-Van, according to DTS.

While most resources related to operations of TheBus and TheHandi-Van were restored in that incident, email servers were shut down.

In what was later investigated as a ransomware attack, Honolulu city officials collaborated with transit agencies in other U.S. cities targeted by hackers affiliated with Russia. The FBI, HPD and U.S. Secret Service also looked into that prior incident.

On Monday neither the FBI nor U.S. Secret Service could be immediately reached for comment over the city’s online outage or its possible cause.