Islamophobic cyber attack downs Wi-Fi at UK transport hubs

Public Wi-Fi services at 19 of the UK’s most important railway stations, including most London termini, are in the process of being recovered following an apparent cyber attack that saw landing pages display Islamophobic messages to members of the public attempting to log on.

The attack – possibly the work of far-right hacktivists, although this is unconfirmed – began during the evening peak on Wednesday 25 September and resulted in the services being pulled offline for investigation and remediation. At the time of writing, the service remains disrupted, and may not be fully restored for up to 48 hours.

In a brief statement, a Network Rail spokesperson said: “Last night, the public Wi-Fi at 19 of Network Rail’s managed stations was subjected to a cyber security incident and was quickly taken offline. The incident is currently subject to a full investigation.

“The Wi-Fi is provided by a third party, is self-contained and is a simple ‘click and connect’ service that doesn’t collect any personal data. Once our final security checks have been completed, we anticipate the service will be restored by the weekend.”

A spokesperson for Telent, which operates the affected networks, said: “Following the incident affecting the public Wi-Fi at Network Rail’s managed stations, Telent have been working with Network Rail and other stakeholders.

“Through investigations with Global Reach, the provider of the Wi-Fi landing page, it has been identified that an unauthorised change was made to the Network Rail landing page and the matter is now subject to criminal investigations by the British Transport Police.

“No personal data has been affected. As a precaution, Telent temporarily suspended all use of Global Reach services while verifying that no other Telent customers were impacted,” they said.

The affected stations were Birmingham New Street, Bristol Temple Meads, Clapham Junction, Edinburgh Waverley, Glasgow Central, Guildford, Leeds, Liverpool Lime Street, London Bridge, London Cannon Street, London Charing Cross, London Euston, London King’s Cross, London Liverpool Street, London Paddington, London Victoria, London Waterloo, Manchester Piccadilly, and Reading.