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Posted on 10/18/2014 7:52:38 AM PDT by GonzoII
We took a hacker to a café and, in 20 minutes, he knew where everyone else was born, what schools they attended, and the last five things they googled.In his backpack, Wouter Slotboom, 34, carries around a small black device, slightly larger than a pack of cigarettes, with an antenna on it. I meet Wouter by chance at a random cafe in the center of Amsterdam. It is a sunny day and almost all the tables are occupied. Some people talk, others are working on their laptops or playing with their smartphones.
Wouter removes his laptop from his backpack, puts the black device on the table, and hides it under a menu. A waitress passes by and we ask for two coffees and the password for the WiFi network. Meanwhile, Wouter switches on his laptop and device, launches some programs, and soon the screen starts to fill with green text lines. It gradually becomes clear that Wouter’s device is connecting to the laptops, smartphones, and tablets of cafe visitors....
(Excerpt) Read more at medium.com ...
Tech ping
Sounds like they were logged into their Facebook accounts and he just followed the traffic to their pages and noted the info. He probably just used a network monitoring tool to do it. There are plenty of them out there. Some get pretty expensive tho...
Read the whole article. Bottom line. He uses a device which creates a network that people can log into and he can name it whatever he wants to so if you’re at a Starbucks and the network name is “Starbucks” but you see another network with a name like “Starbuckz” you better know which one is the correct one because if you log into the hacker’s network he can see all the data that our device is receiving and sending including your passwords. Clever little trick and simple but effective.
BTTT
“Wouter” is a cool name.
Sounds like a form of “spoofing” to me.
>>We took a hacker to a café and, in 20 minutes, he knew where everyone else was born, what schools they attended, and the last five things they googled.<<
My birthplace and schools are no where on my laptop nor on the interwebz. I keep saying only a fool puts any personal data on FB. This reaffirms that.
Likewise I don’t use Google, I use StartPage.
The old “Wifi Spoof” is one of the oldest hacks. But people still fall for it.
I lay all of this at the feet of Microsoft. In their zeal to catch and destroy Netscape, they eschewed securing their software architecture and how it could have secured the hardware. By the late 90s they were irrevocably committed and couldn’t go back and secure everything.
Indeed. His black box is probably nothing ,ore than a smart phone providing a ‘hot spot’ for people to use for wi fi
Who sends passwords in clear text?
Sounds like a Man in the Middle attack as well.
Actually, it is far more insidious. While he clones the nearby hotspot (same name and credentials) he also listens for attempts to connect to known networks which were not secured. Been to Disney World? Open WiFi ports there, and it just appeared in downtown Phoenix. Betcha a whole bunch of phones, laptops and computers will connect, and start sending data through the network. Some DNS spoofing, and you credit union app likely just shared your account credentials.
Clear any unsecured hotspots from your connection list (Vons, Statbucks, Hilton..) as soon as you are done with them. And if you frequent such hotspots, absolutely look into and use a VPN tunnel to a secure computer to act as your gatekeeper (and obscure your data from sniffing at the hotspot.)
Just imagine if this technology was used against Obama protesters by a liberal hacker -they might find out your Facebook account, where you work, your church.. They could cause pronlems, maybe lie to your boss, insert child porn and report you for harassing children.
Really makes you think.
Wifi spoofing, he creates Starbucks with the same password and a far stronger signal on a different band. Then jam the real Starbucks band. Every laptop will automatically lock to the clear signal and relog.
Wouter” is a cool name.
A compond name of “Wanker” & “Router”?... perfect for a German hacker
It is a long and detailed article that conveys no useful information aside from wi-fi use is highly risky, unless.......
Unless what, what security measures?
On the rare occasion I use a WiFi hotspot I didn’t set up myself, I open a VPN connection before doing anything.
I have OpenVPN clients on all of our phones, tablets, and laptops.
I see what you did there. LOL.
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