German rail operator says train disruption caused by sabotage
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Re: German rail operator says train disruption caused by sabotage
#2This was reported to be caused by severed cables in two different places. And I read some speculation/claims that this cut the primary and the backup systems simultaneously, which would explain why this lead to a complete outage in a system that should have quite some redundancy.
Of course we don't really have enough reliable information right now, but it looks a bit like this would require quite a bit of detailed internal knowledge to know which two cables you need to cut to shut this down entirely. Which would suggest more sophisticated actors might be responsible for this.
Re: German rail operator says train disruption caused by sabotage
#3Just cut, not stolen?
Has Germany been spared from overhead line theft? It's been a regular thing in Sweden for a decade or so.
https://www.thelocal.se/20120404/40090/
https://www.tellerreport.com/news/2021-08-11-copper-thefts-c...
They're also now stealing copper sheets from graveyard buildings and church doors, plus grave adornments.
Re: German rail operator says train disruption caused by sabotage
#4Maybe I am tinfoiling too hard...
In February this year there was an attack against Vodafone Portugal that brought down their whole mobile networks, 4G, 5G, and fiber, taking them several days to bring everything back up [0]. It also very clearly was a state actor, no threats, no ransom, sophisticated.
Taking down pipelines, taking down comms, taking down transport infrastructure. All within a few months. Always on NATO targets, always localized, never claimed with any statements, always sophisticated enough that it would require knowledgeable state actors.
It all seems like a training ground to find out if they can do it and probably a message to NATO members to not assume they are safe.
[0] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2022/02/vodaf...
Re: German rail operator says train disruption caused by sabotage
#5Just cut, not stolen? Has Germany been spared from overhead line theft? It's been a regular thing in Sweden for a decade or so. https://www.thelocal.se/20120404/40090/ https://www.tellerreport.com/news/2021-08-11-copper-thefts-c... They're also now stealing copper sheets from graveyard buildings and church doors, plus grave adornments.
Perhaps the thieves had to run and leave the cable?
Re: German rail operator says train disruption caused by sabotage
#6No post body was provided.
Re: German rail operator says train disruption caused by sabotage
#7This was reported to be caused by severed cables in two different places. And I read some speculation/claims that this cut the primary and the backup systems simultaneously, which would explain why this lead to a complete outage in a system that should have quite some redundancy. Of course we don't really have enough reliable information right now, but it looks a bit like this would require quite a bit of detailed in…
While the GSM-R system belongs to the rail system which is dubbed critical infrastructure much of it is either publicly documented and/or shared between a rather large number of operators. So far I didn't read anything that would indicate that this disruption required more than somewhat specialized domain knowledge and a bit of experience in the industry.
Re: German rail operator says train disruption caused by sabotage
#8I get sabotage. But why international sabotage?
Re: German rail operator says train disruption caused by sabotage
#9This was reported to be caused by severed cables in two different places. And I read some speculation/claims that this cut the primary and the backup systems simultaneously, which would explain why this lead to a complete outage in a system that should have quite some redundancy. Of course we don't really have enough reliable information right now, but it looks a bit like this would require quite a bit of detailed in…
If they were cut simultaneously or close enough AND they weren’t routed together (I’ve seen cases where the main fiber and backup fiber were in the same trench for a distance, backhoe magnet) then it’s pretty good guess it’s intentional sabotage.
However if one line had been cut at some point earlier and they were ON the backup line when that got cut, it could be sabots or it could just be generic construction mistakes/idiocy.
Re: German rail operator says train disruption caused by sabotage
#10I get sabotage. But why international sabotage?
Perhaps you read 'intentional' too quickly.