Cyber thieves have created a brand new scheme that targets public WIFI users and it’s called WIFI Jacking.
Kristen Maurer of Magnolia is the founder of a K-9 rescue charity who recently needed to be rescued herself from an attack she never saw coming.“It’s really terrifying because you have no idea what they can get into and what they can steal from you,” Maurer said.
Maurer is just one of the people who have been victimized by cyber criminals armed with wild-looking devices, like something out of “Star Wars,” that they use to electronically smash their way into people’s cellphones and then steal their most sensitive information. In Maurer’s case, the thieves rang up hundreds of dollars on her credit card and hacked into her email as well. ”What these guys were able to do to me was break into my personal email address, break into my credit card, and utilize it for their benefit,” she said.Absolutely nothing, other than use public Wi-Fi systems, just like millions of us do every day.It’s a crime that allows the crooks to actually break into your smartphone and take whatever they want, according to United States Secret Service Agent Michael Alvarez, a specialist in forensic network intrusion. ”This crime has been called the ‘man-in-the-middle-attack’ or ‘Wi-Fi Jacking’ and what happens is these guys will set up outside of a public Wi-Filocation, and as long as they’re able to access the Wi-Fi signal from that location, they can impersonate that Wi-Fi and they can start setting up the attack,” Alvarez said. Colman Ryan is a forensic cyber detective with Kgriff Investigations in Houston and he shows KPRC 2 Investigates the high-tech equipment these criminals will use to pull off this crime. “So, this is a very high-powered, directional antenna that these criminals use. It looks like a ray gun out of Star Wars, but it’s actually a very powerful tool. What they are going to do is aim this thing in the direction of potential victims at a coffee shop, hotel, or wherever there is a public Wi-Fi network and they’re going to force your smartphone onto their network. Once they do that, they can grab whatever they want from your phone, passwords, emails, credit card information, banking information,” Ryan said. In fact, these cyber pirates, Ryan says, can hack your phone even after you’ve left that public WIFI location because your phone remembers that Wi-Fi network, and the thieves can connect it to your phone. KPRC 2 asked Kelly Shidler, who also works in IT, to use the Wi-Fi at a local coffee shop to prove that.Now, with Shidler’s help, we’re going to show how Ryan, using his high-powered antenna and the rest of his hacking equipment, can hack into her phone and take total control of it. Now, parked down the block and across the street, 50 yards away, Ryan simply points his antenna at Shidler’s house and the crime begins.He then forces her phone onto his network and boom, he now has control of her cellphone. “I’m trying to force her phone onto my network. It’s coming, and, and I’ve got her. I am in control now of her phone,” Ryan demonstrated. Now, to prove that Ryan’s got the control he is bragging about, we ask Shidler to go to a favorite website of hers, but she never gets there.Shidler is both stunned and flabbergasted, not by the website, but by what has just been done to her phone without her permission.In Maurer’s case, it wasn’t just shock and surprise. Those hackers swept hundreds and hundreds of dollars after gaining access to her phone.Step one:Step two: If you absolutely have to use public Wi-Fi, before you leave that public Wi-Fi location, delete or tell your phone to forget that Wi-Fi address. Otherwise, it is stored in your phone for the future and for cyber thieves to hack into it.Michael Alvarez with the Secret Service recommends this. ”I would set up a virtual private network to ensure that you’re protected with encryption. That kind of scrambles all your data, so it doesn’t look where anybody can read it,” Alvarez said.Make sure when using your cellphone, laptop, or tablet, that you always accept the updates that are offered to you, to keep your security up to date.Make sure the browser you’re using has the universal, lock symbol on it, indicating it is protected. If it doesn’t have that, you are at risk of being hacked. Critical steps to take, to protect everything you’re carrying around in that tiny, little phone of yours.
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