Subtitles section Play video Print subtitles Okay, here you go. Sit back, relax, and look out for hacking. That's what airline pilots might as well be saying during your next flight. An old scam is back, this time on airplanes. Consumer investigator Chris Kimbrough has a warning about a vulnerability in your phone's Wi-Fi. And tonight, Chris is gonna steer us away from it. We're starting our journey in Australia. A Perth man has been charged with cybercrime offenses. News outlets down under broke this story over the summer. A 42-year-old man has faced court accused of creating fake Wi-Fi networks. Australia's equivalent of the FBI arrested this man. Investigators accused him of stealing airline passengers personal info while they were in flight using what's called evil twin Wi-Fi. It's extremely easy. That's Adrianas, a longtime tech guru and security advisor. Since like mid-1980s, so I'm really old-handed. See a circa 1982 Commodore 64 over his shoulder? Adrianas explained that evil twin Wi-Fi is an imposter that copies the name of Wi-Fi you trust, and your phone remembers. Think places like airports, hotels, or coffee shops. Adrianas said pretenders were an issue with early Wi-Fi, but the threat died off. And so this is kind of a revival of that attack. The Australia case added new twists. Investigators say the man they arrested got on several flights where passengers were sitting ducks. Detectives say the man had a small portable Wi-Fi hotspot that he named exactly the same as the airport Wi-Fi. So once the plane took off and passengers switched to airplane mode, their phones connected to the imposter Wi-Fi, thinking they were just reconnecting to the airport Wi-Fi. It's not really hard to do. Next, Australian police say the evil twin Wi-Fi instructed people to log in for internet access using their social media or email passwords. Some did. Key ingredients for identity theft. A lot of companies will never ever meet you physically. They only will meet you digitally. And if I can get your digital identity, I am you. This Australian arrest is regarded as a first. Some US airports are on alert. SJC said it is aware of the incident. Oakland's airport told us we are aware of recent events involving airports and are monitoring the situation very closely. You need to be aware too. Evil twin Wi-Fi can pop up anywhere and spoof any Wi-Fi network you've ever connected to. Humans are the weakest link in this. If your smartphone is like mine, it probably has a long list of public Wi-Fi hotspots that it saved and will automatically reconnect to even if it's an evil twin. So tell your phone to forget those. Here's how. Open your settings, find the list, then swipe to forget those networks. Then only connect when you see a Wi-Fi network you know and trust. Once you finish using a public Wi-Fi, change your device settings to forget network. As an added layer of Consider installing a virtual private network on your device to encrypt and secure your data. One more option. Do a 180 with Wi-Fi. Most of us leave it on by default. Well, consider leaving it off by default. Then only turn it on when you see a network or hotspot you know you trust. Yes, it's an extra step, but key to keeping yourself one step ahead of an evil twin scammer. All right, thank you, Chris. Good information there. Now, whether you've got a complaint about Wi-Fi or anything else, we want to hear about it. You can scan the QR code on your screen right now and you can fill out a consumer complaint online.
B1 US wi evil twin twin evil network airport Beware of the ‘Evil Twin’ Wi-Fi scam 14005 61 VoiceTube posted on 2024/09/25 More Share Save Report Video vocabulary