Malicious people are setting up free wifi access points in bookstores and coffee shops in the effort to capture private information that flows through the network connection.

The attacker buys a WiFi pass and then uses a USB WiFi Adapter to share the connection to others for free. Often they’ll use an SSID that says, FREEWIFI or something similar. If you connect to that network, the attacker will be able to capture everything you do on the network and can even use a man in the middle of attack to see information you submit over what you believe is an SSL connection to a web server. That means they can get your credit card information if you purchase goods or your banking login!

Security expert Phil Cracknell, president of the UK’s Information Systems Security Association, claims that evil twin attacks are easier to perpetrate than conventional phishing schemes. Discussing WiFi security with InfoWorld, Cracknell points out that identity thieves can set up rogue WiFi access points designed to capture private user information using little more than a laptop with a USB WiFi adapter and some special software. According to Cracknell, these schemes can be difficult to trace, and allow culprits to “harvest some incredible information in a short span of time.”

So how can you avoid falling for one? It’s pretty difficult. You’d have setup a VPN to your home computer or if your company offers you one, you should use that. Otherwise you’ll have to be very careful.

As long as you have a firewall enabled (such as Windows Firewall), for the most part, it is safe to browse the internet using an Evil Twin Network but you should not go to any web sites that you need to login to or you are automatically logged into because you’ll give the attacker access to that login information. Don’t forget to disable any automatic email checks or Instant Messaging clients before connecting because they’ll have access to that login information too.

[Attack of the "evil twin" WiFi networks]

[tags]wifi, wi-fi, evil twin wifi, rogue wifi, security, mac address, free wifi, man in the middle, ssl, vpn[/tags]