Mysterious breakdowns of Polish trains. Hackers give reasons

Newag is one of the leaders among manufacturers of railway rolling stock in Poland. His Impuls series vehicles are used, among others, for: in Koleje Dolnośląskie, PolRegio or the Warsaw Fast City Railway. In 2022, there were a series of faults with these machines, which resulted in their grounding.

The findings of Onet journalists show that there is a deeper meaning to the case. An anonymous rail safety expert said that Behind the scenes, there is a fight for big money for servicing Impuls cars. Especially after external companies were legally allowed to do so regardless of Newag’s will.

Service technicians from SPS Mieczkowski from Bydgoszcz had so many problems with repairing the trains that they hired hackers from the Dragon Sector group to determine the causes of the faults. They, however, announced during the “Oh My H@ck” conference that – as they claimed – they had discovered the manufacturer’s interference in the vehicle software.

The text shows that Newag was supposed to do this specifically so that the Impulse service contracts would be returned to it. It was noted in the article that the manufacturer had problems with servicing its trains.

The rest of the article is below the video

– First, someone from Newag entered the logic into the software that if the train stands still for more than ten days, it will not move. Someone apparently thought that if the train is parked, it must be inspected by some service. However, these trains were also parked in the hangars of the Lower Silesian Railways. Someone from Newag rightly decided that this spoiled the narrative about the incompetence of the SPS, so a kind of “innovation” was introduced – said Michał Kowalczyk from Dragon Sector, who, together with Sergiusz Bazański and Jakub Stępniewicz, published a report on this matter.

The hackers added that additional “security” was detected in some vehicles, which led them to believe that “they will not move if they are located in a specific location in Poland“The list includes halls of external service companies.

Newag firmly denies the hackers’ findings, and the company’s spokesman said that the company has already notified the “appropriate services” about the matter.

“According to the Company’s knowledge and assessment, users of railway vehicles in Poland, guided mainly or exclusively by price, are increasingly entrusting the maintenance of railway vehicles to entities that do not have the appropriate competences and know-how necessary to maintain modern railway vehicles. In the Company’s opinion, this type of policy, which is unthinkable in Western European countries, may one day lead to a human tragedy in the form of a railway disaster.” – says a fragment of Newag’s statement.

The Central Anticorruption Bureau replied to Onet that the case was “known” and “very complex”.