Hackers disable prison vans' panic alarms and trackers in cyber attack

Hackers disabled panic alarms and tracking devices on prisoner vans in a cyber attack that went unknown to some drivers 'for days'. 

Some Serco crews did not know for three days last week that vehicles were being used 'without tracking or proper alarms and no security staff', according to one well-placed source. 

The attack targeted transport tech firm Microlise who provide tracking software to ensure Serco employees' locations are known at all times. 

The devices have been out of use since October 31 with staff being told to make sure their mobile phones are fully charged, and crews to make contact with their bases every 30 minutes. 

Serco sent the warning in a notice to staff in which the private security contractor said 'paper maps and guidance' would be being used to support transport staff. 

Mail delivery firm DHL was also impacted by the attack. 

A source told the Financial Times that Serco's crews were unaware for three days that the software had been disabled. 

According to the Times, the notice from Serco said: 'It is apparent that there are a number of staff concerns surrounding the safety of staff and custodies in our care, due to the Microlise outage that we are currently experiencing across the business.'

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Serco vans transport more than 24,000 prisoners every month and is the Ministry of Justice's (MoJ) largest private provider for escorting inmates. 

Prisoners being transported to court and prisons were not affected during the outage. 

Microlise has now restored some of its systems with the aim of all of its services being restored by the end of next week.  

A Serco spokesman said: 'We are aware that one of our subcontractors has been impacted by a cyber incident. We have put in place mitigation plans and we have continued to provide prisoner escorting services uninterrupted for the Ministry of Justice.' 

Microlise said: 'As confirmed late last week, Microlise has been impacted by a cyber incident, affecting part of the systems and services we provide. 

'Some of our systems have now been restored and we are continuing to safely and securely complete restoration across all affected systems.'

'Throughout this process our internal incident team has been working closely with external cyber security experts to resolve this incident,' it added.

DHL said last week: 'We can confirm this incident has not affected DHL-owned systems. 

'However, as a precaution we have implemented our appropriate safeguarding measures. We are working to resolve the situation and have implemented contingencies to ensure that service levels are maintained for those customers who may be potentially impacted. '

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Prisoners able to roam unmonitored amid a massive backlog of fitting electronic tags to inmates

MailOnline has contacted the MoJ for further comment.  

The MoJ recently blamed Serco, which also manages the prison tagging system, for the delays in fitting ankle tags to inmates who had been released early as part of Labour's efforts to ease overcrowding. 

It said domestic abuse offenders were being prioritised for tagging to make sure they are following their licence conditions, such as staying away from their victims.

Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood was reported to be 'furious' over the delays.

Serco said it was working to reduce the backlog of released prisoners waiting to be tagged.

One offender released in September, who is ordered to stay at home from 7am to 7pm, told the BBC: 'They should have tagged me but they haven't and it means I can go where I choose.

'I don't want to end up back inside so I'm sticking to the curfew, but I know people who aren't doing that because they've not been tagged. It's a disaster waiting to happen.'