At about 19 railway stations managed by the UK’s Network Rail the public Wi-Fi network was hacked and remained inaccessible on Thursday, as British Transport Police (BTP) investigate the cyber-attack.
A number of London stations, including London Euston and Paddington, and Manchester Piccadilly, Liverpool Lime Street, Birmingham New Street, Edinburgh Waverley and Glasgow Central, were among the targeted ones, Network Rail said. Passengers attempting to connect to the public Wi-Fi at Network Rail-managed stations encountered a screen displaying a message regarding terror attacks in Europe.
“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 off-line,” a Network Rail spokesperson said.
The incident is now under investigation. The Wi-Fi is provided by a third party. A spokesperson described the system as “self-contained and a simple ‘click & 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,” the spokesperson said.
Telent, the company responsible for managing the Wi-Fi system, stated that the attack, first reported on Wednesday evening, originated from someone operating the Wi-Fi homepage. The matter is now being handled by the police.
“An unauthorised change was made to the Network Rail landing page from a legitimate Global Reach administrator account and the matter is now subject to criminal investigations by the British Transport Police (BTP),” Telent said.
(With PTI inputs)