A British railroad company has stoked the ire of its workers after it falsely offered them “appreciative” bonus compensations during an in-house network security test. News of the one-time bonus payment came in the form of an email, which offered a heartfelt thanks to train station employees who had worked through the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead of a cash bonus, however:

…workers for West Midlands Trains who followed the link in April and entered login details discovered that there was no bonus after all, only a notice that the email was a security test, measuring recipients’ susceptibility to messages faked by outside hackers. Unamused and angered, a union for the company’s employees has called the test a “cynical and shocking stunt” and called for an apology.

Employees have publically decired the “cruetly” of the email while the event has pushed cybersecurity experts to discuss what constitutes fair game during means of testing organizational network security.

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