Budapest public transport company receiving international mock award nomination

Not only is the BKK (Budapest Public Transport Company) fighting the criminals plundering the ticket machines, as Index reported, but now they got nominated among the worst companies at an international conference, NLCafé announces.

The mock award

ITCafé discovered the humiliating nomination that BKK received at a leading international hacker competition.

The Hungarian company was nominated amongst the five lamest companies.

The annual BlackHat conference probably chose the company due to the issues with the e-ticket system.
You might remember the story of a young hacker finding security breaches in the system. When he drew the attention of the company to these breaches, they reported him to the police in return. Later, by means of compensation, they offered him a job, but only after receiving tens of thousands of one-star feedback on their facebook page.

Ticket machine looters

In the meantime, Index looked into the problem of ticket machine feuds, because the e-ticket system appears to be only one of the problems. In fact, there are barely any machines in Budapest that have not been tampered with. Not only individuals commit such crime, but there are also groups that glue and block the machines systematically. They earn approximately 4,000 Forints a day while blocking one machine.

BKK told Index reporters that they cooperate with T-Systems since the beginnings and continuously introduce hardware and software developments.

For example last summer they included a coin sensor system into every ticket machine. So whenever a foreign object gets into the machine, it bans cash payment automatically until the object is removed. This way no future customers lose their money until the machine is repaired.

They also introduced a function where the machine beeps and then sucks the bills back after 60 seconds if the customer does not take the change so that the money cannot get into the hands of the looters. Also, wherever it is possible extra forces are patrolling near the machines and police can observe them through closed-circuit cameras as well.

So to finish on a good note, as a result of all these measures the attempts to block the machines have been reduced by 40 percent. In some cases, BKK even ensures the safety of the ticket machines with security guards hired from their own budget.

This June the number of blocking attempts dropped by 70 percent where the security guards were present.

However, you choose to buy your tickets, watch out for suspicious activities. Have a safe journey.

Featured image: bkk.hu

Source: index.hu, nlcafe.hu