There are plenty of reasons why a public Wi-Fi connection is appealing.
It may be quick to connect to, easy, and free. It may save you on data usage
and in many cases be faster than a 3G, 4G, or even 5G.
For the same reasons that free Wi-Fi is attractive to users, also makes it
an attractive attack vector for cyber-criminals. Think about it, it is free,
open, and easy to access. That makes it an easy choice for hackers to use as
a tool. It may be possible that hackers can use their tools to attract
unsuspecting visitors to their traps so they can attack them. Here are a few
ways that they may do that.
- Position their tools to intercept data
- Setting up fake web sites
- Phishing
An attacker can set themselves up to steal your personal information,
banking, crypto, etc. But how? In this scenario, they could setup another
Wi-Fi access point and set the name. The name can be something attractive
like guest-wifi, free-wifi, free-starbucks-wifi, etc. Then a visitor may
decide to connect to one of these free hotspots and begin to use the
internet the same way they always do. This creates an opportunity for a
hacker to perform a “Man-in-the-middle attack”. This is a common tactic used
by cyber-criminals to steal your data.