Cyber Attack on Train Station Wi-Fi
19 major railway stations across the UK have been affected by a cyber attack on train station Wi-fi!
People accessing the wi-fi were displayed with a message about terror attacks. This message has been linked to the account of an insider working at the internet provider.
The stations affected by the attack were:
London Euston, London Cannon Street, London Bridge, Charing Cross, Clapham Junction, Kings Cross, Liverpool Street, Paddington, Victoria Manchester Piccadilly, Liverpool Lime Street, Birmingham New Street, Glasgow Central, Leeds, and Bristol temple meads.
This image shows the wi-fi’s webpage after the Cyber Attack on the train station which said ‘We love you, Europe’ and displayed information about terror attacks, MailOnline has obscured the image.
Telent, the third-party firm that provides wi-fi for Network Rail, said it was also investigating the incident. Thankfully no personal data is known to have been affected. A man has now been arrested on suspicion of offenses under the Computer Misuse Act 1990!
A word from our director Alex Richards at Liberate IT about the Attack:
This will have been a malicious actor directly targeting the public wi-fi for propaganda purposes or to promote an agenda.
Public wi-fi is always isolated and firewalled from any other network so there will be no risk to data held or processed by Network Rail themselves. Public wi-fi is the easiest target due to its accessibility, and the most visible when tampered with.
The only potential danger is that anyone else using the public wi-fi at the time could have had their data snooped. This is where information being sent from/to your device on the public wi-fi is inspected and listened to.
This is why it is important to only use encrypted services on public wi-fi, or a VPN service using encryption. Better yet, stay clear of public wi-fi and use your 4G or 5G data service where you can.
5 ways you can we stay safe going forward:
- Consider using a Virtual Private Network (VPN) to encrypt your data.
- Double check that you are connected to the correct network as hackers can create a fake hotspot.
- Try and avoid using public wi-fi if you can and use your mobile data instead.
- Make sure to turn off auto-connect to wi-fi.
- Don’t shop or display your bank details when using public Wi-fi.
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