TfL’s Oyster service for taking Tube taken offline after users are hacked

Travellers unable to check balance or top up their cards

A commuter swipes his Oyster card at a London Underground station (Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

Transport for London's online Oyster system has been taken offline after a number of its users were hacked.

The outage means that people are unable to check their balance or top up their cards through the website.

The Oyster system allows travellers to top up payment cards and then use them to get around London. The online service is a companion to that, letting people see how much money is left on the card, add more, and change various settings.

TfL says that it made the decision after it became clear that a number of customers had their login details compromised. The service was shut off to prevent them from being abused, it said.

But it also made clear that it did not think the passwords were leaked by TfL or its services. Instead, it suggested they had been stolen from another website and then were used to login to the Oyster service.

“We believe that a small number of customers have had their Oyster online account accessed after their login credentials were compromised when using non-TfL websites," a spokesperson told The Independent.

"No customer payment details have been accessed, but as a precautionary measure and to protect our customers’ data, we have temporarily suspended online contactless and Oyster accounts while we put additional security measures in place. We will contact those customers who we have identified as being affected and we encourage all customers not to use the same password for multiple sites.”

TfL said anyone who notices an issue with their Oyster account should get in touch over the phone.

Users should be able to use the Oyster app still, and top ups at ticket machines inside stations are still possible.