PSA: Nearly got my business accounts cleaned out at a coffee shop in Austin last week

I was at a place called Brew & Bytes on South Congress, connected to their free WiFi to check some estimates, and within 20 minutes my phone started showing weird login alerts from my bank. Turns out someone was running a fake hotspot that looked legit, and I almost typed my password into a phishing page that popped up. How do you guys verify a public WiFi network is actually the real one before you hop on?

3 comments

3 Comments

harpery4719d ago

Wait, can a fake hotspot actually clone your MAC address? I thought that was just like an identifier for your device on the network, not something they could just steal and reuse. Pretty sure they'd need way more access to pull that off.

mila_murphy2119d ago

People are actually setting up fake hotspots to steal business info now... that's insane.

the_amy19d ago

Bet @mila_murphy21, it's actually way worse than most people think because these hotspots can clone your device's MAC address too. That means they can pretend to BE you on a network and steal your saved passwords or track your location without you ever connecting. Most folks just think "don't use free WiFi" but don't realize how deep the identity theft angle goes.