WiFi Snooping: Here’s What Eavesdroppers See Over Unsecured WiFi Hotspot

What restaurants would we choose for dining with our loved ones, or which café would we want to hang out at with our friends? In the past, it was because a place had great taste or exceptional service. However, these are no longer the important factors.

Our preferences are now based on the availability of free Wi-Fi at public places – we all know that. Every new morning, a coffee shop will put up a “free Wi-Fi” board on their doors, while some food joints will require you to purchase before you become eligible to get Wi-Fi.

We all want to connect to any open network to carry out our online activities without thinking a second about the implications and problems with WiFi’s wireless security.

Given the needs of most millennials to upload photos, update their check-ins, and post their stuff on social media, everyone connects to any available free public WiFi, not knowing the cost they pay.

However, most people do not know that public Wi-Fi hotspots are an ideal target for hackers and snoopers. According to a survey conducted by CNBC, most people are unaware of the risks of using public Wi-Fi.

How to Secure Wi-Fi from Hackers?

What can be accessed when they hack in?

A hacker can steal everything on a device—photos and videos, contacts, communication logs, passwords, you name it. Simply put, a hacker can access a device the same way a device owner would.

In 2009, Glenn Fleishman and Adam Engst collaborated to publish a book titled “Take Control of Your Wi-Fi Security”. This book does justice to describing the ins and outs of Wi-Fi security in detail.

The book’s authors researched and came up with a list of things that hackers can access once they gain unauthorized access to your Wi-Fi. Here is the list:

All email accounts and passwords	All content of webpages visited.	List of all login locations
All email communication	Credentials for unsecured websites	Authentication tokens
Credentials for unsecure websites	FTP username and password	All documents sent via FTP
Sent and received instant messages	Downloaded media  (music + videos)	IP address and mac address
Port numbers	Credentials for telnet sessions	Remote control/VNC sessions
Encrypted transaction details	Pop-based email credentials	Files sent through Dropbox
Account info sent via SFTP	VoIP logs (calls + messages)	Secure webpages with SSL/TLS

Hackers can also snoop into your home Wi-Fi!

A Wi-Fi router has multiple encryption protocols in place to ensure that no one can unauthorized access your data. However, these protocols are not perfect.

An update is released every few days to correct shortcomings in the previous version, bringing with it new vulnerabilities.

These vulnerabilities allow hackers to bypass all the security measures and access your Wi-Fi. They can use your bandwidth for accessing illegal content or download copyrighted material. What’s worse, they can use it to steal compromising information from your device and use it to blackmail you and extort money.

Where are you most likely to get hacked?

How do you know if someone is connected to your home Wi-Fi?

• Step 1: Log in to your router’s admin panel by typing in the specific IP address; in most cases, it is 192.168.0.1. You can find this IP address on a printed label under your router, or on the box it came in.
• Step 2: Log in with your credentials. If you have never changed them, your user name and password will be admin. However, it is strongly recommended that you change them instantly.
• Step 3: Navigate to wireless network>connected devices. Here, you can view all the devices connected wirelessly to your Wi-Fi router.
• Step 4: If you spot any device you do not recognize, you should immediately block it and change all your passwords.

How to hide your Wi-Fi?

For some people who live in a tech-savvy neighborhood, connectivity speeds are a nightmare. Their neighbors keep hacking their Wi-Fi and using their bandwidth for a free ride!

If you are one of those whose Wi-Fi has many free riders, you should hide your network. Watch this video to learn how to do that.

How to prevent Wi-Fi snooping?

You can take a few steps and measures to ensure that no one else can gain unauthorized access to your Wi-Fi.

Being cautious and making an effort to protect your privacy can help you remain safe even when you are connected to a public Wi-Fi hotspot.

• Keep a complex password for your Wi-Fi router’s control panel.
• Keep a difficult-to-guess Wi-Fi password. Change this regularly.
• Ensure that WPA encryption is turned off because it is the easiest to hack.

Or, you could just get PureVPN. It is a complete cybersecurity solution that can protect your devices when connected to a public Wi-Fi hotspot or your home Wi-Fi. It masks your IP address and assigns you a pseudo-identity, making it impossible for hackers and eavesdroppers to know that you are connected to a specific network.

Once you install PureVPN, you can say goodbye to all old-school problems, such as installing an anti-virus and keeping it updated or getting rid of pop-up ads and scam emails. You will also become completely invisible on the internet, which will keep your activity hidden from advertisers, scammers and monitoring authorities.