“NEWAG, the manufacturer of the Impuls family of trains, put code in the train’s control systems that prevented them from running if a GPS tracker detected that it spent a certain number of days in an independent repair company’s maintenance center”
NEWAG geofenced its own trains to punish rival repair shops. The code also killed trains if a part got swapped without an approved serial number. Three hackers found it and got the trains running again. NEWAG denies the bricking, threatens to sue, and now says the fixed trains are unsafe because they were “hacked.” The only safety risk here is a manufacturer that will strand passengers to protect a maintenance contract.