Researchers outsmarted EasyRide function on Swiss travel app
Experiments by ETH Zurich and NCCR Automation computer security researchers showed that smartphones can be manipulated to allow the owner to ride Swiss trains for free. The researchers also highlighted ways of curbing such misuse.
In brief
- Users with sufficient expertise can manipulate their smartphone’s location data.
- This is how ETH Zurich researchers managed to trick the Swiss federal railways (SBB) app. They showed that it would be possible to ride the rails for free.
- The researchers informed SBB. The company says it has now taken appropriate action. Now, this kind of ticket fraud would be detected at least after the fact and penalised.
You can read the full story on the ETH Zurich website.
