Man arrested after wifi at Scotland’s busiest train stations displays Islamophobic messages

A man has been arrested after an act of cyber vandalism hit public wifi at Scotland’s busiest railway stations, police said.

Edinburgh Waverley and Glasgow Central, as well as Manchester Piccadilly, Birmingham New Street and ten stations in London, were among those affected by the incident on Wednesday, which saw passengers trying to log on instead of being shown messages about terror attacks in Europe, according to reports.

The Manchester Evening News said the wifi landing page after the hack said “We love you, Europe” and contained information about terror attacks, which the British Transport Police (BTP) described as “Islamophobic messaging”.

On Thursday evening, BTP said a male employee of Global Reach, the company that provides wifi services to Network Rail, had been arrested on suspicion of offences under the Computer Misuse Act 1990 and the Malicious Communications Act 1988.

The force added: “Officers received reports just after 5pm yesterday of a breach of some Network Rail wifi services at railway stations which were displaying Islamophobic messaging.

“The abuse of access was restricted to the defacement of the splash pages, and no personal data is known to have been affected.”

Network Rail, which manages the stations, suspended wifi services at stations across the country following what it described as a “cyber security incident”.

The only Network Rail-managed station not affected was St Pancras.

In a statement on Wednesday, the rail company said they hoped to restore public wifi services at its stations by the weekend once security checks had been completed.

The stations affected are:

• Birmingham New Street
• Bristol Temple Meads
• Edinburgh Waverley
• Glasgow Central
• Guildford
• Leeds
• Liverpool Lime Street
• London Bridge
• London Cannon Street
• London Charing Cross
• London Clapham Junction
• London Euston
• London King’s Cross
• London Liverpool Street
• London Paddington
• London Victoria
• London Waterloo
• Manchester Piccadilly
• Reading