Security News > 2022 > December > Russians hacked JFK airport’s taxi dispatch system for profit
Two U.S. citizens were arrested for allegedly conspiring with Russian hackers to hack the John F. Kennedy International Airport taxi dispatch system to move specific taxis to the front of the queue in exchange for a $10 fee.
The taxi dispatch system is a computer-controlled system that ensures that taxis are dispatched from the airport's holding lot to pick up the next available fare at the appropriate terminal.
According to the unsealed indictment published by the U.S. Department of Justice yesterday, two men, Daniel Abayev and Peter Leyman, with the assistance of Russian hackers, breached the JFK taxi dispatch system between September 2019 and September 2021.
Beginning in 2019, ABAYEV and LEYMAN explored and attempted various mechanisms to access the Dispatch System, including bribing someone to insert a flash drive containing malware into computers connected to the Dispatch System, obtaining unauthorized access to the Dispatch System via a Wi-Fi connection, and stealing computer tablets connected to the Dispatch System.
The members of the Hacking Scheme also sent messages to each other in which they explicitly discussed their intention to hack the Dispatch System.
"In order to skip the taxi line, taxi drivers would message their taxi medallion numbers into the group chat threads, and a member of the hacking scheme would then message the terminal that the taxi driver should go to in order to skip the taxi line and pick up a fare," describes the indictment.