Computer trivia

Do you regularly use wi-fi hotspots in the public places? Then you gotta be really cautious about your Internet behavior when you are connected to one of those deadly hot spots.

Recently the number of attacks on users connecting to public hot spots is increasing rapidly and being a new problem this hasn’t got any proper solution yet. The problem is that, you connect to a hotspot in an airport say, and start checking your mail and in an extreme case, shopping online. But then, you may not be connected to the legitimate hot spot in that air port but to the guy siting next to you in the airport. It has become very easy with new software for anyone to configure a simple lap top as wi-fi hotspot. It is usually the case that people configure heir laptops to search for the network with the best strength and connect to it automatically.

So when you enter the airport, your laptop will search for the highest signal strength and connect to the guy siting next to you with a laptop (coz he is next to you, the signal strength will be very high). This has been termed as “Evil Hotspot’. This eveil hotspot can then monior literally everything you do as long as you are connected to it.

So how do you protect yourself?

- If you use standard services like T-Mobile etc. you don’t need to worry. Its a problem only when you use those free wireless access points provided.

- Configure your laptop to ask you before connecting to a network (though it is inconvenient)

- Look for minor difference in names while connecting (T-Mobile and t-Mobile). These bad guys try to mimic the legitimate service providers

- Do not transmit confidential information when you are using public hotspots, even if it is very urgent.

I guess I provided some useful stuff
Bye

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