The story
History
In 1876 (when Nowy Sącz was partitioned by Austria-Hungary), the Imperial–Royal Railway Workshops opened, serving the newly built Tarnów–Leluchów railway line. After the First World War and the establishment of the Second Polish Republic, the company, renamed "1st Class Main Workshop", was redirected to serve Polish State Railways (PKP), employing some 1,800 workers in 1922.
In post-World War II communist Poland the workshop was nationalised and later became a separate, though still state-owned, enterprise officially called "Nowy Sacz Railway Rolling Stock Repairs Depot in Nowy Sacz, State Independent Enterprise" (Polish: Zakłady Naprawcze Taboru Kolejowego "Nowy Sącz" w Nowym Sączu, Przedsiębiorstwo Państwowe Wyodrębnione; ZNTK Nowy Sącz), with a workforce of about 3,500 in 1952. ZNTK Nowy Sącz serviced its last steam locomotive (a TKt48) in 1972.
After the fall of communism and the economic changes of 1989, ZNTK Nowy Sącz was transformed into a State Treasury Joint Stock Company, with the Polish state as the only shareholder. The company went through a period of financial turmoil around 2001 and its shares were acquired by a private domestic investor in 2003. The current name was adopted in 2005. In 2008, Newag acquired ZNTK Gilwice and subsequently integrated the latter's operations into the wider company.
In 2012, the first electric multiple unit from the 35WE series belonging to the Newag Impuls family of trains was produced. In 2013, the 31WE Impuls train achieved the speed of 211.6 kph on the Central Rail Line (CMK) setting a new record for a train designed and manufactured entirely in Poland.
In December 2013, the company made its debut on the Warsaw Stock Exchange with 43.47% of the company's shares having been sold.
In May 2024, the company secured a PLN 2.7 billion (EUR 740 million) contract with PKP Intercity, which aims to diversify its rolling stock, for the delivery of 35 hybrid dual-mode multiple units.
2023 revelation of software sabotage
At the OhMyH@ck conference held in Warsaw on 5 December 2023, software engineers from white hat hacker group Dragon Sector revealed that they had reverse engineered the embedded software of Newag 45WE Impuls EMUs after operator Lower Silesian Railways had experienced a number of mysterious breakdowns when maintenance was performed by their selected contractor Serwis Pojazdów Szynowych (SPS). In Newag's response, the issues were a result of malpractice by SPS and the trains should have instead been serviced by Newag.
Analysis of the software revealed that the train's embedded computers were programmed to lock up and display bogus fault messages and prevent the train from running if a GPS tracker detected that it spent a certain number of days in an independent repair company’s maintenance center, and also if certain replacement parts had a serial number not approved by the manufacturer.
Read the full text
In an investigation it was also discovered that the software locks could be bypassed by pressing a sequence of buttons in the cab of the train, although a later software update removed this ability. The Dragon Sector group analysed 29 trains belonging to Lower Silesian Railways as well as other affected operators such as Masovian Railways, SKM Warszawa, WKD and Polregio, 24 of which had software locks which were unlocked by the group. After those findings were made public, former Minister of Digital Affairs Janusz Cieszyński confirmed the Polish government and Polish intelligence agencies had known about the findings since May. It was also revealed that the Polish Internal Security Agency (ABW) had, in October 2022, submitted a case against Newag regarding the abovementioned software manipulation incidents to the prosecutor's office in Nowy Sącz, which initially downplayed the incident until said findings publicly came to light, after which, the investigation was taken over by the regional prosecutor's office in Kraków on suspicion of crimes committed under Article 269 §1 and Article 286 §1 of the Polish Penal Code.
Newag strongly denied the claims they intentionally disabled their software and instead alleged SPS was propagating a conspiracy theory to avoid contractual penalties for being unable to service the trains. Newag also claimed there is no proof they are the author of the software or that the modifications had been introduced by them. Newag stated it would take legal action against SPS and the Dragon Sector group for slander and defamation.
The Dragon Sector hacker group subsequently gave a presentation at the 37th Chaos Communication Congress (37C3) in Hamburg on 27 December 2023, where they explained in detail the process of debugging the train software and their findings.
The Sejm's Parliamentary Committee for Combating Transport Exclusion subsequently convened three hearings regarding the abovementioned allegations on 17 January, 27 February and 26 March 2024, whose participants included representatives of the Dragon Sector team, Newag, railway operators and members of the Sejm.
Newag has since filed a lawsuit for copyright infringement against Dragon Sector and SPS. The first hearing was held by the District Court in Warsaw on 28 August 2024.
From Wikipedia’s article on Newag, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5