Shared Wifi- Any Risks?

A few years ago a friend of mine was sitting at a Starbucks working on his laptop when he noticed that some of his files were starting to get deleted.

But that wasn't the worst part...

The hacker found his tax return file and emailed it to everyone on his contacts list.

What was your question, again?



~Bill

You should search Youtube for "man in the middle attack".

Probably not an issue with a neighbor but definitely could be for anyone using a laptop in public places.

As Bill has stated anytime you share a network (ie a wifi connection) then everyone can see what everyone else is doing. There was a shocking news item in the UK not long ago about businessmen using wifi in coffee shops to do detailed things and access banking. These businessmen where shocked when the reporter told them what they were doing!

Rich

I started to answer this, but went back to check, and saw you are listed as a "european marketer" and no location given.

I know that under U.S. Laws (although maybe unlikely to be prosecuted), this falls into the category of "unauthorized use of a computer network" which carries limited penalties, but the instant you interact with a financial institution, many government agencies, or by some not very creative stretches, your own business websites, you have crossed into "unauthorized use of a computer network for financial or personal gain." Which under the strictest applications of law, could result in prison terms.

It's the American I.T. professional in me sneaking out to talk.

Now back to your question. The neighbor would be considered (in most jurisdictions) well within their rights to place a packet sniffer on their own network. If they granted permission to use their network, they may be required to provide you notice, but if you're jumping onto their network without permission they generally are not required to offer you any notice.

The danger of a packet sniffer is that it can literally capture any data you send, or that is sent to you, over that network. Encryption helps, but honestly SSL encryption isn't that strong if a good package were used and since you're on their network they can be sure they have access to EVERY single packet, thus the highest likelihood of breaking the encryption.

Take this with a grain of salt. I'm someone who encrypts my personal files with a 4 kilobit key. Just because I'm paranoid, doesn't mean I'm not right.

I use shared wifi in my college all the time, never experienced any problems. Although, I NEVER opened my finance websites over there. But seeing the above replies, I think it is certainly not recommended.