There are plenty of reasons why a public wifi 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 WiFi 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.