Users of public access Wi-Fi at 19 major British railway stations were told “the Islamisation of Europe is already happening, and it’s getting worse each day” in what police have called an “Islamophobic” hack.
British Transport Police say they are investigating “Islamophobic messaging on some Network Rail Wi-Fi services” after the default landing page for public internet available at some of the country’s largest railway stations was changed on Wednesday.
A spokesman for the third-party telecoms company which provides public internet access to the Network Rail estate said of how this was achieved: “It has been identified that an unauthorised change was made to the Network Rail landing page from a legitimate Global Reach administrator account… The matter is now subject to criminal investigations by the British Transport Police.”
Network Rail say they disabled all public internet hotspots at their stations when the issue became apparent, and say they are confident no passenger data was stolen, as has been the case with other recent cyber attacks on the UK transport network.
The content delivered to potentially thousands of internet users on Wednesday afternoon was a web page titled “We love you, Europe” which detailed recent Islamist terrorist attacks in the continent and which claimed: “the Islamisation of Europe is already happening, and it’s getting worse each day… Below is just a SMALL taste of what’s coming”. Details about the attacks listed beneath the introduction were illustrated with pictures taken from mainstream media reports, including British state broadcaster the BBC.
While the assertions made about the Manchester Arena terrorist attack by an Islamist radical that killed 22 innocent victims and injured 1,107 people in 2017, for instance, were factually correct and are readily available in newspaper archives and online, most reporting of the incident saw screenshots of the hack-inserted webpage heavily censored. The British Transport Police have decried the purpose of the hack as being “Islamophobic messaging”.
The hack impacted at least 19 of Britain’s largest railway stations. While most stations in the UK are managed by individual Train Operating Companies, the largest and most strategic locations are managed directly by the government-owned Network Rail, and it is these which are said to have been targeted today. In London, commuter hubs Cannon Street, Charing Cross, Clapham Junction, Euston, Liverpool Street, London Bridge, King’s Cross, Paddington, Victoria, and Waterloo were impacted.
The only major London station not reported to have seen its Wi-Fi interfered with was London St Pancras station.
Outside of London, the stations Birmingham New Street, Bristol Temple Meads, Edinburgh Waverley, Glasgow Central, Guildford, Leeds, Liverpool Lime Street, Manchester Piccadilly, and Reading were impacted.
