The website for Dublin’s tram system (Luas) was hacked and the attacker demanded a ransom of just one bitcoin (worth about $4000).

The attacker wasn’t after money but to teach the authorities a lesson for ignoring her advice after warnings about weaknesses in their security.

“You are hacked,” the message read. “Some time ago I wrote that you have serious security holes.

You didn’t reply.

The next time someone talks to you, press the reply button.

You must pay one bitcoin in five days.

“Otherwise I will publish all data and send emails to your users.”

It then listed an address to send the bitcoin. The message was subsequently removed.

The company tweeted: “The Luas website was compromised this morning, and a malicious message was put on the home page. The website has been taken down by the IT company who manage it, and their technicians are working on it.

“We apologises to all Luas customers for the inconvenience,” Luas added on Twitter.

Luas carried 37.6 million people in 2017 and transports 100,000 passengers on average daily.

A ransomware attacker with a soul. Let’s hope the authorities take notice of the security weaknesses and don’t get caught out again.

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