UK court jails young hackers for massive London transport cyberattack

Thalha Jubair, 20, from East London, and 18-year-old Owen Flowers from England’s West Midlands were each handed five-and-a-half-year sentences at London’s Woolwich Crown Court.

The pair pleaded guilty last month to hacking Transport for London’s (TfL) network between August 31 and September 3, 2024, gaining access to around 7 million customers’ names and contacts.

Sentencing the men, judge Mark Turner said their actions had caused “very serious” disruption and were motivated primarily by “selfish bravado”.

The attack did not affect transport on TfL’s networks but knocked its services offline for three months, costing the organisation around £25 million (US$33.7 million), according to the judge.

TfL, which had to reset the passwords of some 27,000 employees, estimated the attack cost £29 million in damages and £10 million in lost income.