Wireless
networks are very present in our day today. We have more and more devices
that allow us to surf the Internet without using cables. This is very
useful, but you also have to consider the risks. Especially when browsing
a public Wi-Fi network, there are
many attacks that we can suffer and put our privacy at risk. We are going
to talk about this in this article. We will also give advice on where
insecure networks are most common and, most importantly, how to navigate
safely.
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Main attacks on insecure Wi-Fi networks
As we say, when we connect to a Wi-Fi
network, we can suffer many types of attacks that, in one
way or another, can compromise our security and privacy. Therefore, we
must be prepared to face these problems, although the main thing is to know
what we are facing. Let's see what are the most common attacks if we
browse and insecure Wi-Fi network.
Man-in-The-Middle Attacks
The Man-in-the-middle attacks are
strongly associated with unsafe wireless connections. It is undoubtedly
one of those threats that we must take into account if we are going to connect
to a public Wi-Fi that we do not control and where there may be hackers.
What is a Man-in-The-Middle attack? Basically, we
can say that it is an intermediary, the attacker in this case, who is between the
network to which we connect and our device. In this way, it could steal
all the data that travels from our computer to the network—a way to collect
personal information.
Data theft
The network itself could steal the data we
send. On many occasions, we find a public Wi-Fi that asks us for certain
information in order to access it. For example, our email, name and
surname, postal address, telephone number ...
This data could be used maliciously, could include us in
spam lists, or even serve to send personalized phishing attacks. Ultimately
our personal information has great value on the web and could be used for
profit. Therefore, data theft is another of the most common problems.
DNS hijacking
We cannot forget about DNS hijacking. With
this type of attack, hackers can modify the web addresses that we visit. Let's
say we want to enter a website, such as redeszone.net, but when we put that in
the browser, we are redirected to another page controlled by the attacker.
With this, they manage to divert users, ultimately
victims, too insecure websites, which can contain all kinds of threats that put
our systems at risk and affect privacy.
Sneak malware
The malware is another
problem that can suffer entering Wi-Fi. They could create a portal so that
we have to access and later enter the web, but also ask us to download a file
that would supposedly be used to enter the Internet.
In this way, they could sneak malicious software into
our systems. It is an alternative to DNS hijacking, which could also be
used to infect our computers with all kinds of malware.
