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Sacramento Regional Transit Systems Hit By Hacker

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — Sacramento Regional Transit is the one being taken for a ride on this night, by a computer hacker.

That hacker forced RT to halt its operating systems that take credit card payments, and assigns buses and trains to their routes.

The local transit agency alerted federal agents following an attack on their computers that riders may not have noticed Monday.

"We actually had the hackers get into our system, and systematically start erasing programs and data," Deputy General Manager Mark Lonergan.

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Inside RT's headquarters, computer systems were taken down after the hacker deleted 30 million files.

The hacker also demanded a ransom in bitcoin, and a left a message on the RT website reading "I'm sorry to modify the home page, I'm good hacker, I just want to help you fix these vulnerability."

Bitcoin has risen sharply in the last year from around $1,000 in December to more than $8,000 on Monday.

Ryan Eldridge is the founder of the company called "Nerds on Call."

"I would say they're probably young, because they just want to show off," Eldridge said.

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Eldridge says the hacker will likely find an online forum to take credit for the hack, and that they may not be local.

"The person who hacked it may have simply had an exploit that he was running in the background on his machine, and then got a hit, 'Hey RT is available to be hacked,'" Eldridge said.

RT claims it managed through the trouble, without a significant slow down for riders, and that no employee or customer identities were stolen.

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