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Showing posts with the label Wi-Fi

The Hidden Dangers of Public Wi-Fi

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Public Wi-Fi, which has long since become the norm, poses threats to not only individual users but also businesses. With the rise of remote work, people can now work from virtually anywhere: a cafe close to home, a hotel in a different city, or even while waiting for a plane at the airport. Next, let's explore the risks of connecting to public Wi-Fi, both for you personally and for businesses. According to the Forbes Advisor the majority of people (56%) connect to public Wi-Fi networks that don't require a password. This convenience comes at a price, and many are unaware that attackers can steal card details, passwords, and other sensitive information. Man-in-the-Middle (MITM) Attacks:  This is one of the most common threats on public Wi-Fi. In an MITM attack, the hacker secretly intercepts and possibly alters the communication between two parties. The user believes they are directly communicating with a website, email server, or another user, but the hacker is relaying t...

New "Whiffy Recon" Malware Triangulates Infected Device Location via Wi-Fi Every Minute

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  The SmokeLoader malware is being used to deliver a new Wi-Fi scanning malware strain called  Whiffy Recon  on compromised Windows machines. "The new malware strain has only one operation. Every 60 seconds it triangulates the infected systems' positions by scanning nearby Wi-Fi access points as a data point for Google's geolocation API," Secureworks Counter Threat Unit (CTU) said in a statement shared with The Hacker News. "The location returned by Google's  Geolocation API  is then sent back to the adversary." SmokeLoader, as the name implies, is a loader malware whose sole purpose is to drop additional payloads onto a host. Since 2014, the malware has been offered for sale to Russian-based threat actors. It's traditionally distributed via phishing emails. Whiffy Recon works by checking for the WLAN AutoConfig service (WLANSVC) on the infected system and terminating itself if the service name doesn't exist. It's worth noting that the scanne...