Islamists Mocked after Hacking Bus Timetable Website, Thinking it Will Cause Chaos in ‘the West’

A group of Islamist hackers hoping to disrupt travel throughout the Western world instead took control of a bus timetable website for the city of Bristol in southern England.

‘Darkshadow’, a group of hackers apparently based in Tunisia, replaced the contents of TravelWest.info with a black page advertising that the site had been taken over. However, rather than organising travel to destinations all over the Western world, the site only contains bus information for part of South West England.

Local residents trying to find bus times were greeted with a message saying that the site had been hacked by the group – who call themselves an ‘Arab Security Team’ – with Arabic music being played in the background.

Local paper the Western Daily Press says that the hackers mistook it for a far more influential site promoting global travel. In fact, the ‘West’ in the website’s name refers only to the West Country – the traditional name for South West England.

The group appeared to acknowledge their mistake by removing a post on their Facebook page boasting of the hack, after people started mocking their attack.

One person wrote: “Oh dear, can’t tell the difference between a local bus company and travel site! Pathetic.”

Jenny Johnson said: “It’s a f***ing bus timetable website. Well hard to hack so something big,” with Saki Piranha adding: “Can you fix this little error on the TravelWest site? Nice music by the way.”

The site was hacked in New Year’s Eve and was still down yesterday, but has now been restored.