Man behind Edinburgh Waverley cyber attack given 2-year suspended sentence
A man who hijacked the WiFi landing pages at train stations across the country including Edinburgh Waverley train station has been sentenced, following a British Transport Police (BTP) investigation.
John Andreas Wik, 37, from Beckenham, pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to publishing or distributing material intended to stir up religious hatred.
He was sentenced on Wednesday July 9 at Inner London Crown Court to 24 months imprisonment suspended for 24 months. He was also ordered to pay a victim surcharge of £150 and ordered to undertake 280 hours of unpaid work and 25 days of rehabilitation activity.
On September 25, 2004, around 19 train stations were affected including Edinburgh Waverley, Glasgow Central, London Euston and Manchester Piccadilly. The court heard how at around 3pm, users attempting to connect to the free WiFi network at some Network Rail managed stations across Britain, as well as venues elsewhere in the country and abroad, were redirected to a landing page containing Islamophobic messaging.
The page also contained references to previous terrorist attacks that had taken place in the UK and abroad, including 7/7 and the Manchester Arena bombing, with some who viewed the page fearing that that an attack was about to take place.
Reports started coming into BTP from 3pm, and an investigation was launched. At the time of the incident, Wik was an employee of Global Reach Technology, the company that managed the free station WiFi for twenty of Network Rail's biggest and busiest stations as well as Bicester Village shopping centre.
The company were quickly alerted to the incident, believing at first that Wik had been hacked by a third party. However they soon after noticed that Wik had used his company-issued laptop to modify the landing pages. The company then reported the matter to the police.
Officers attended Wik's address the following day where he was arrested, and a subsequent search of his mobile phone and work laptop revealed bookmarked pages listing terrorist attacks and Islamophobic messages.
DC Adrienne Curzon said: "This was a highly planned and disturbing abuse of power and access that caused distress and genuine fear to some of those who witnessed his hateful messaging. Everybody deserves to feel safe when they travel on the railway network, and abuse, intimidation, and violence motivated by hate will never be tolerated.
"We will continue to act swiftly and decisively, and we would encourage all passengers to save 61016 as a contact on their phone and report any suspicious behaviour or concerns they have to us."