Evil Twins

The BBC were banging on about this today.

Is there any way to protect yourself under these circumstances?

[Nugget]

Always practise safe sex?

Anyway, everybody knows the best way to protect yourself from an evil twin - lock him in the attic and feed him on a bucket of fish heads once a month*




*Copyright 'The Simpsons - Treehouse of Horror*

Originally Posted by Nugget

Always practise safe sex?

Anyway, everybody knows the best way to protect yourself from an evil twin - lock him in the attic and feed him on a bucket of fish heads once a month*




*Copyright 'The Simpsons - Treehouse of Horror*

[Mr_love_monkey]

Originally Posted by Nugget

Always practise safe sex?

Anyway, everybody knows the best way to protect yourself from an evil twin - lock him in the attic and feed him on a bucket of fish heads once a month*




*Copyright 'The Simpsons - Treehouse of Horror*

So are you the good nugget or the bad nugget???

Originally Posted by Incognitas

Is there any way to protect yourself under these circumstances?

Look out for a computer identical to yours but with a beard?!

[Nugget]

Originally Posted by Incognitas

Is that not what you were talking about, then?

Originally Posted by Mr_love_monkey

So are you the good nugget or the bad nugget???

I think that we all know the answer to that one, now don't we?















Took me ages to bite my way out of the attic

This is just like being in the class room.Bunch of smartarses amd male ones at that.

I was actually asking a serious question

[sherer]

i think the best thing to do is when using a public hotspot not to do internet banking or anything that involves sending personal info or passwords.. if you have to do that find an internet cafe or something to do it instead

[Mr_love_monkey]

But surely online transactions tend to be encrypted, so a base station might be able to record your data - but the chances of them trying to decode it are somewhat remote.

I guess what they could do, is a) offer you a login prompt to join their network, when you think you are joining the proper network - so you give up access passwords ... b) redirect your requests to certain banking sites, to theirs - and grab your info that way.

I guess you just have to be wary whenever you do anything like that, and keep your eye out for urls that seem suspect, like you have to with this phishing lark

[Gareth]

Here's a quote on the same issue, posted on T3...

Originally Posted by T3

Dr Phil Nobles, cyber crime expert, states that †œEvil Twin hotspots present a hidden dangerââ‚Ã⠀šÃ‚¬Ãƒâ€šÃ‚¦ users think theyââ‚ ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢ve logged onto a wireless hotspot connection when in fact theyââ‚ ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢ve been tricked to connect to the attackerââ‚à ƒâ€šÃ‚¬ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚¢s unauthorised base station.ââ‚à ƒâ€šÃ‚¬Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ÂÂ� The Evil Twin blocks connection to any legitimate nearby hotspot, redirecting you to an illegal base station by sending out a stronger signal, enabling cyber crooks to intercept any data transmitted such as confidential bank details. So how do you avoid getting stung? Well, thereââ‚ƚ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢s only one solution at the moment, until better Wi-Fi security measures are introduced. According to Professor Brian Collins, Head of Information Systems Department at Cranfield University, all you can do is avoid conducting any financial transactions or transmitting sensitive data over a Wi-Fi hotspot, be it via a wireless laptop, PDA or any other Wi-Fi enabled device.

[KingPhoenix]

Originally Posted by Mr_love_monkey

But surely online transactions tend to be encrypted, so a base station might be able to record your data - but the chances of them trying to decode it are somewhat remote.

Thats all good and well, however i could setup a lan, with a dns server, a web server and a wireless hotspot, copy the banking websites publish what appears to be the genuine site on my web server...... set the dns server to point to my webserver if that domain name gets called hence displaying my website, allowing me to catch all the data..... its dead easy to do, anyone with any networking knowledge could set it up really.........

[Nemesis]

The only way I see it .. is to not roam outside your own WIFI network, and if you do ensure that you don't do anything in regards to sensitive information.

A couple of weeks before crimbo, Andy E and myself drove through parts of Belfast enroute to our destination. His wireless network sniffer picked up dozens of Wireless Access Points, both private and buisness, that where not password protected. Apparently many admins also keep the default passwords for their wireless networks, making it easier for hackers to access to poorly protected wi-fi networks.

Hopefully he'll look in and get involved in this thread, cause it could get interesting at that point.

[altis]

There seems to be much hype and little technical detail about this 'problem'. Some more details here:
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=cranfield+evil-twin

Whatever, I'd recommend the following as a minumum:

1) Start by making sure your wireless network employs WPA-PSK encryption. Make sure the pre-shared key is long and random.

2) Switch on MAC filtering to ensure that only your own devices can get into your access point.

[sherer]

surely the above only applies to your wireless network.. this is talking about using so called public hotspots that are only there to steal your password details