MBTA, Commuter Rail Say False Service Alerts A 'Technical Issue'

BOSTON (CBS/AP) — The MBTA and the company that runs its commuter rail said alerts that went out Wednesday warning commuters that service "was delayed until further notice" was not a hack, but a "technical issue."

Check: MBTA Service Alerts

The alerts went out at 5:37 a.m.  The T then sent a notice out minutes later telling commuters to disregard the alert.

There were initial concerns that the system may have been hacked, but Mac Daniel, a spokesman for Keolis Commuter Services which runs the commuter rail, told WBZ-TV it appeared to have been "a technical issue within the T text alert system."

They're still trying to figure out what caused the problem.

"The T Alerts system was not hacked. It appears to be a technical issue. We have tech staff looking into it right now," MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo told WBZ.

"It's not affecting our ability to issue legitimate service alerts this morning."

This is what the false alerts looked like:

Daniel says the false alert applied to commuter rail lines out of South Station, which are running at about 62 percent of a normal weekday schedule as the system continues recover from a series of snowstorms that crippled the Boston area's public transit system.

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