Question: Regarding the apparent cyberattack on Oahu Transit Services Inc., has the information of Holo card- holders who registered their cards been exposed?
Answer: “No HOLO card information has been exposed. Out of an abundance of caution, the HOLO card readers (on TheBus and TheHandi-Van) were taken out of service to ensure system security. The HOLO card system operates on a different network than OTS,” Travis Ota, a spokesperson for Honolulu’s Department of Transportation Services, said Tuesday in an email.
Holo cards are reloadable electronic passes used to ride Oahu’s mass transit. Card-holders can register their cards at holocard.net, which says data such as name, email address and banking information is kept on a secure database, not on the card. As Ota said and DTS Director Roger Morton reiterated, the Holo card network is separate from OTS, the nonprofit organization that manages TheBus and TheHandi-Van for the city. OTS was hit last week by an apparent cyberattack that disrupted some services, such as access to TheBus website and app, and, for a short time Saturday, scheduling for TheHandi-Van, which transports passengers with disabilities. TheBus and TheHandi-Van are running, but certain electronic or online services remained unavailable as of deadline Tuesday, including Holo card deductions.
Morton said that it is standard cybersecurity protocol to immediately disconnect otherwise unaffected systems to isolate the problem. “We don’t have a concern over” the Holo card system, he said Tuesday at an impromptu news conference.
Readers had other questions, mostly about fare payments, which Ota answered:
Q: I should be able to catch my regular buses because I know their schedules; I don’t use the app. Will my Holo card be deducted?
A: No, not while Holo card readers on TheBus and TheHandi-Van are offline. “Riders can show their HOLO cards to the operator as proof of fare for the duration of this outage,” Ota said, or pay with cash if that is possible.
Ota took pains to say that the system is not offering “free” rides, but is operating within the constraints of this incident. He did not know when Holo card readers on buses and para-transit vans would be turned back on.
“As a reminder: rides are technically not free; we cannot offer ‘free’ rides without City Council approval by ordinance,” he said.
Q: Will I be turned away from TheBus if I don’t have cash?
A: No, you shouldn’t be. “DTS and OTS has instructed our bus operators to let people board by showing their HOLO card since the outage,” Ota said.
Q: What about Skyline?
A: Oahu’s elevated rail-transit system “remains unaffected by the outage, and riders are still required to pay with a HOLO card to enter stations at the fare gates,” he said.
Q: Will satellite city halls be open today?
A: Yes. Juneteenth is a federal holiday but not a state-observed paid holiday in Hawaii.
Q: Will there be mail delivery?
A: “U.S. Postal Service retail locations will be closed, and there will be no regular mail delivery except for holiday premium Priority Mail Express on Wednesday, June 19, in observance of the Juneteenth holiday,” according to USPS.com.
The Congressional Research Service explains that Juneteenth — also known as Emancipation Day, Freedom Day, Jubilee Day, Juneteenth Independence Day, Black Independence Day and, by U.S. statute, Juneteenth National Independence Day — celebrates the end of slavery in the United States. “On June 19, 1865, Major General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas, and announced the end of the Civil War and the end of slavery. Although the Emancipation Proclamation came two-and-a-half years earlier on Jan. 1, 1863, many enslavers continued to hold enslaved Black people captive after the announcement. Juneteenth became a symbolic date representing African-American freedom,” it says.
Juneteenth became a federal holiday in 2021. At least 28 states and the District of Columbia have designated it as a permanent paid and/or legal holiday, the CRS says.
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