My cousin the sysadmin made me ditch hotel wifi for good

I was crashing at his place in Austin last week and he saw me logging into my bank on the hotel network from a trip earlier. He goes 'you realize anyone with a laptop and a few tools can see your session cookies on public wifi, right?' I had never really thought about how easy it is to spoof a legitimate network name until he showed me a quick demo on his own machine. Made me grab a VPN literally the next morning, has anyone else had a tech friend call them out like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

garcia.casey11d ago

Used to think that just keeping my passwords safe was enough, but watching a buddy pull up captured data from a coffee shop network in less than five minutes was wild. He showed me how easy it is to clone a login page and grab credentials without even trying hard. Definitely made me rethink all those times I checked my email on airport wifi without a second thought. Stuck with me so much I actually set up a VPN on my phone and laptop before my next trip.

kelly.keith11d ago

@Garcia.Casey your buddy probably had a good laugh showing you that, but now you are one of us paranoid folks who treats every open network like a trap. I had a similar wakeup call years ago when I saw a coworker use a simple free tool to intercept an unencrypted email login at a Panera. Now I wouldn't touch airport wifi without a VPN any more than I would leave my front door unlocked.