All the Things a Hacker Can Find Out About You on Public WifiYour vacation, your job, your passwords
By
Sarah Laskow
smithsonian.com
If you own a computer or a mobile phone, chances are you have done something very risky with it—connected, perhaps without even knowing that you have, to a public Wifi network. Most coffee shops or trains or hotels don't have hackers hanging out in them and snooping over their Wifi networks. But some do, and those people can find out a disturbing amount of information about anyone whose Wifi-enabled device happens to be overly friendly. The Dutch site De Correspondent published (and Matter republished, in English) an account of what, exactly, an "ethical hacker" could determine, or at least infer, about the people around him at public coffee shops. That included:
Maurits Martijn writes:
Creepy, right? There are, of course, ways to minimize these risks (besides staying home and swearing off the use of all internet-connected devices, forever). Most people do not try to minimize the risks, however; we just trust that our favorite coffee shop isn't also the favorite coffee shop of someone who's nosy or out to steal our passwords, and much more internet savvy than we are. Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/all-things-hacker-can-find-out-about-you-public-wifi-180953051/#SgQw1H0oDH0haShU.99 Give the gift of Smithsonian magazine for only $12! http://bit.ly/1cGUiGv Follow us: @SmithsonianMag on Twitter http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/all-things-hacker-can-find-out-about-you-public-wifi-180953051/?utm_source=smithsoniantopic&no-ist |