This time on airplanes. Consumer
investigator Chris Chmura has a
warning about a vulnerability in
your phone’s Wi-Fi. And tonight,
Chris is going to 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. Are you
trying to steal data?
Investigators accuse 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. Adriana’s a longtime
tech guru and security advisor.
This is like mid 1980s. Some
really old hand in it. She is
circa 1982, Commodore 64. Over
his shoulder, Adriana 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. Adriana 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 impostor 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 U.S. 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 to 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
protection, Australian police
recommend security software.
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