Physical Attacks on the Railway System

Recent attacks encouraged public interest in phys-ical security for railways. Knowing about and learning from previous attacks is necessary to secure against them. This paper presents a structured data set of physical attacks against railways. We analyze the data regarding the used means, the railway system's target component, the attacker type, and the geo-graphical distribution of attacks. The results indicate a growing heterogeneity of observed attacks in the recent decade compared to the previous decades and centuries, making protecting railways more complex.