Man arrested over huge cyber attack on UK's busiest train stations

A man has been arrested over a huge cyber attack on wi-fi services at some of the UK's biggest railway stations.

Manchester Piccadilly, Birmingham New Street, Liverpool Lime Street, Glasgow Central and 10 stations in London were among those affected by the incident on Wednesday.

Passengers trying to log on to wi-fi networks were instead shown messages about terror attacks in Europe, according to reports.

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

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