TfL 2024: A 17-Year-Old, a Social Engineer’s Approach and Oyster Chaos
On September 5, 2024, Transport for London detected an intrusion begun days earlier through social engineering of staff — and within a week a 17-year-old was arrested, then charged under the Computer Misuse Act, for a breach that exposed contact details and the bank details of roughly 3,000 Oyster refund customers. This account reconstructs the phishing entry, the lateral movement, the containment that took status boards and the refund portal offline, the NCSC-NCA response, and the municipal-security lessons that outlasted the headlines.
