Racist Network Rail Wi-Fi hack was work of malicious insider

The British Transport Police (BTP) have arrested a suspect in connection with a cyber attack on public Wi-Fi services at mainline UK railway stations on September 25th.

Passengers at 19 rail stations across the UK were unable to access Network Rail’s Wi-Fi network and instead received racist, Islamophobic messages on their devices.

On September 26th, Telent identified the incident as an unauthorized change to its landing page and is collaborating with Global Reach to investigate.

The BTP have detained an individual from Global Reach Technology on suspicion of conducting the attack, believed to be a malicious insider.

According to a spokesperson for the force, the suspect has been arrested for offenses under the Computer Misuse Act 1990 and the Malicious Communications Act 1988.

The breach was limited to defacing splash pages, with no known impact on personal data.

Telent confirmed the incident as cyber vandalism originating from within the Global Reach network, not as a result of a security breach or technical failure. Public Wi-Fi services are expected to be restored by the weekend.