UK police investigating Islamophobic hack of Wi-Fi at train stations

LONDON (Reuters) -British police said on Thursday they had launched an investigation into a cyberattack after passengers at the country's major railway stations saw an Islamophobic message when they tried to use Wi-Fi services.

The Wi-Fi system, which is managed by communications group Telent, was quickly taken offline after passengers said a message was displayed which referred to terror attacks.

"We received reports at around 5:03 p.m. (1603 GMT) yesterday (Sept. 25) of a cyberattack displaying Islamophobic messaging on some Network Rail Wi-Fi services," British Transport Police said.

Tensions in Britain flared over the summer with a wave of anti-Muslim riots across the country after the killing of three young girls, an attack which was initially falsely blamed on an Islamist migrant following online misinformation.

The police said they were working with Network Rail to investigate the Islamophobic cyber security incident "at pace".

Network Rail, the group which manages tracks and train hubs, said the Wi-Fi remained offline on Thursday following the incident at 19 stations including London Bridge and London Euston as well as Manchester Piccadilly and Edinburgh Waverley.

Telent said in a statement that no personal data had been affected by the hack, adding the matter was now in the hands of the police.

It said an unauthorised change had been made to the Network Rail landing page, provided by Global Reach, from a legitimate administrator account.

"As a precaution, Telent temporarily suspended all use of Global Reach services while verifying that no other Telent customers were impacted," it added.

Network Rail said it expected the Wifi service to be restored over the weekend once final security checks were completed.

(Reporting by Sarah Young, Editing by Kylie MacLellan)