kai463•13d ago

Overheard a guy at the coffee shop say 'public WiFi is fine if you don't bank online'

I was grabbing a latte before school last week and heard this dude tell his friend that public WiFi is totally safe as long as you avoid logging into your bank. That's just wrong. I've read that hackers can grab your session cookies or even fake the whole network with a pineapple device. Has anyone here actually had their info stolen from public WiFi or do most people just get lucky?

2 comments

2 Comments

sarah_brown13d ago

Oh man, I actually had this happen to me at a Starbucks a couple years ago. Got a notification that someone tried logging into my email from a different state while I was just browsing news articles. That "don't bank online" advice is outdated. What most people don't realize is that hackers can capture cookies from sites like Facebook or Amazon and use them without needing your password. I always use a VPN now, even for just scrolling social media, and I turned off WiFi auto-connect on my phone too.

schmidt.willow13d ago

Laughing at myself here @sarah_brown because I literally did this last month - walked into a coffee shop, sat down, and my phone auto-connected to their WiFi before I even ordered. Forgot I turned that setting back on after a factory reset. Got spammed with scam notifications for like 10 minutes straight before I realized what happened. Seriously though, the cookie thing is real and creepy. I had some random dude in another country buying stuff on my Amazon account once, and I never even gave them my password. Now I just use a solid password manager and keep my phone's WiFi off unless I'm at home. It's annoying but better than getting hacked.