British Transport Police (BTP) has been actively investigating a cyber attack that has disrupted public Wi-Fi services in 19 of the UK’s largest railway stations. The company that manages the Wi-Fi, Telent, said its homepage was hijacked and it looked like whoever did so targeted the network with the attack.
Impacted Stations
Affected stations include major sites London Euston, Paddington, Manchester Piccadilly, Liverpool Lime Street, Birmingham New Street, Edinburgh Waverley, and Glasgow Central. Last week, passengers looking to connect to the public Wi-Fi were presented with some terrifying messages about a series of terror attacks in Europe.
A Network Rail spokesman said:
The Security incident of the public Wi-Fi in 19 Network Rail-managed stations was cyber attacked last night and consequently taken down until further notice. Is run by a third-party provider that operates a simple ‘click & connect’ system that does not store any personal information. Final security checks will have the service back up by the weekend.
Source of the Attack
Telent said the attack was initiated using a legitimate Global Reach administrator account that made unauthorized changes to the Network Rail landing page. Transport for London said the issue is now being looked into by the British Transport Police.
BTP confirmed:
At 17:03 on Wednesday we were made aware of a cyber attack that is displaying Islamophobic messages across some of our Network Rail Wi-Fi services. We are now working with Network Rail to look into this incident as a matter of urgency.
Ongoing Investigations
The police are investigating, and seek to determine the full scale of the breach as they continue their inquiries. Last week, a different cyber-attack hit Transport for London (TfL), which may have affected customer data. Meanwhile, a teenager from Walsall, West Midlands was arrested over the TfL hack.
As the investigation progresses, there are talks that the Network Rail Wi-Fi system will soon be switched back on and officials have assured the public that no personal data was compromised during the attack.
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