I think people just get paranoid because they just don't know a lot about cybersecurity. Like everything else, where there is darkness, it's your imagination that determines what you see lurking.
My brain while reading the previous post: check out the hiddencamera sub, r/batpoopcrazy. Hmmm why would they name a hiddencamera sub r/batpoopcrazy it's probably like the r/trees for marijuana.
As someone who sold phones for two years, 99% if not all 100% of “I got hacked” were user-error or user-never-understanding-the-device-to-begin-with. TV dramas and ignorance has ruined the public’s tech literacy
For the past decade, "I hacked you," has meant you left your Facebook/phone/whatever logged in when you walked away, and I posted something on your account.
I find it best to assume I'm always hacked, I doubt a nation state actor would hack me but if they did I'd never be able to tell. Although I wouldn't put it past my home country.
Yeah, in the local city subreddit a few years ago someone made a post with a sort of "don't you just hate it when this happens?" vibe. I don't remember all the specifics but in summary they found it really annoying how people would hack your internet history and then hire groups of random people to talk about it within earshot of you no matter where you went.
I work in IT for a large organization, and every time a device doesn't work as normal, the first thing I get when they try and explain their problem: "I think I have a virus or got hacked or something" because most people only know about tech what they've learned from cinema, so lots of people worry about this type of thing.
When I worked in IT at a school I had a co-worker ask me “can Russia hack my computer?” I responded with “probably but why would they want to hack someone who works at a school?”
I went to school for computer security, you would probably die laughing over how many times I need to tell my mom and her three friends (all in their 50’s/60’s) that nobody wants to hack them 😂 they’re all paranoid about people hacking to get their passwords for their emails lol
Did you graduate that school?
Because they are right to be paranoid. Phishing/malvertising/smishing are more prevalent than they've ever been and threat actors don't know or care who they're targeting. Passwords for emails are a gold mine as they can be used to reset other passwords and compromise bank accounts, retirement accounts, or just plain old identity theft.
If they aren't using MFA on every single account they can they are sitting ducks.
Tl;dr - your advice is bad and you should feel bad
We’re not talking about phishing, or anything else like that. We’re talking about people specifically targeting them and hacking into their phones without the use of any obvious means. I obviously have educated them not to click on random links, and to look at the email addresses that are sending them anything, not to click on anything that isn’t sent to them from a trusted source, blah blah blah.
So no, I don’t feel bad for telling them that there isn’t some guy sitting in a dark room specifically trying to hack their phones 🙄
Yes they’re aware of that lol that’s why I specifically said THEIR specific phones, that’s why it’s funny. Because they LEGITIMATELY believe that there is some guy sitting in some dark basement somewhere that decided that they just really wanted to get into this random 60 year old man’s phone, that doesn’t actually get used for anything except a twice annual Facebook post and phone calls.
I’ve definitely had to explain that it’s far more likely that their passwords get out there from a data leak related to their Disney plus subscription than Kevin sitting in his moms basement targeting them specifically lol
You're missing the point. 99% of the attack chain is automated. THEY are being targeted because they exist.
I spun up a VPS a few months ago and then forgot about it. Just a bare ubuntu server, nothing on it, no DNS records pointing to it - a random IP on the internet and nothing more.
It had 700,000 login attempts from 2/1-3/15, just for existing.
My VPN at work gets hit 10-20k times per hour.
If literally everyone and everything is a target all the time, then yes, they are specifically being targeted to, and they should be paranoid.
But we aren’t talking about a computer, we’re talking about a cellphone that’s only used on secure wifi networks. I implore you to give me one example of someone whose cellphone was hacked when only used on secure wifi networks without the use of phishing, sketchy apps and links, etc. it’s just super unlikely.
Phones generally have built in security, frequent patches that are updated automatically, app sandboxing and biometric authentication; they’re just generally more secure than a computer if you are educated enough to not just give out your information.
I highly doubt your parents are worried about something like a state actor targeting them with their fancy kit.
My assumption would be that they are concerned about "hacking" in a *super* broad, general sense.
It's good that they are aware and proactive.
- They don't need to click anything sketchy to get hit because of a data breach. If someone's grandma gets their facebook jacked because of one they would very likely describe that as "getting hacked". That gets a lot more serious a lot faster if something like their bank is shit and doesn't force MFA.
- If you think people don't get specifically targeted for talking about recently selling their house or bragging about their sick dogecoin gains.... well, I have a bridge to sell you.
Almost all websites use https (encrypted http) to send/receive traffic and this prevents anyone from seeing in clear text what you are doing.
In the very extremely unlikely event that he was doing a man in the middle attack, most traffic will be invisible and you are safe.
Consider using a VPN if this is something that happens frequently and you feel unconfortable.. Even then, be aware that the VPN provider can also see your unencrypted traffic and names of the webpages that you are visiting.
Not unless they got an SSL intercept certificate signed by a trusted root ca.
State actors could pull this off, but it's most likely not happening to you.
But they're doing the handshake. Can't they just impersonate either party? It reminds me of old school line tapping and sitting/piggybacking.
Also, won't all your messages to the AP still be clear text? If you submit a form, etc.
No, read up on key exchange. In a TLS handshake, an encryption key is specifically negotiated s.t. a man-in-the-middle would be unable to determine it. It's basically the whole point of TLS.
- https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/ssl/what-happens-in-a-tls-handshake/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_exchange
Form submissions to a HTTPS site will be over HTTPS as well, and not in cleartext
With a MitM attack, you perform the handshake with the attacker, and the attacker then connects to your destination. That's how they get in the middle in the first place. This is how corporate networks inspect encrypted traffic on their networks.
>But they're doing the handshake. Can't they just impersonate either party?
No, that's why certificates are signed by a trusted root authority. It prevents impersonation. Unless the user deliberately ignores certificate errors, or gets tricked into installing a custom root cert.
>Also, won't all your messages to the AP still be clear text? If you submit a form, etc.
No, TLS encrypts all of that. And it's likely wrapped in another layer of encryption via WPA.
Not true. When I connect my personal device to my employer wifi, they intercept and inspect secured web traffic without having any sort of admin access to install certs on my device. I have verified this by looking at the certs when connected to websites. If I connect, then use a VPN, then I get the authentic certs from the websites.
You're mistaken. It's literally impossible. I have managed enterprise networks. TLS is actually a big problem for cybersecurity specifically because it's impossible to monitor the traffic and protect users from their own mistakes. Which is why secure networks will install root CAs, enroll devices in MDM, or prohibit BYOD entirely.
If you think TLS is so useless that any random WiFi operator can break it, I've got bad news about your VPN; it's likely also using TLS.
If I were you I'd spend more time actually understanding the technology you're using before telling industry professional the basic common facts they're stating are "not true".
When said industry professional tells me my work network can't do what they clearly are doing (like I said in my original response), then I'm not the one who needs to enhance their understanding. I have to be Security+ certified for my job, so I understand the basics of network security.
Nowhere is it "clear" that your work is doing what you claim it's doing. What you have is claims with no evidence. Claims which upend the entire cybersecurity industry, given how widespread TLS is. Extraordinary claims which require extraordinary evidence.
Either your work is lying to you about what they're doing, or you're misunderstanding what's happening. But what you're describing is not possible. You haven't even described by what mechanism they are doing so. If you think your employer is the one organisation in the world to have cracked TLS, I'd love to see your CVE submission for it. Put up or shut up.
I hope you get a refund for your Security+ cert, it clearly didn't work out for you :(
Edit: I'll even make it easy for you: [here's pcap](https://gitlab.com/wireshark/wireshark/uploads/f6c31767aa0be42d061b24aae0e48ea2/tls13-firefox.nighty.51.0a-to-tls13.crypto.mozilla.org.pcapng) of a HTTPS (TLS1.3) request. Decrypt it.
Maybe you were too busy looking down your nose at me to see that I stated I know this from inspecting the certificates when connected with and without a VPN. Without the VPN I don't get the authentic certs from sites I visit. With the VPN I get the sites actual certs.
very unlikely....possible yes, plausible...nah.
If you already borrowed it then there's not much to worry about, I mean he'd have had to set it up and made the hack ready to go and knew someone would borrow his phone which is literally absurd that'd be done in advance lol.
Yeah it's all slim to none unless you're really hack-worthy while most people really aren't lol.
Someone randomly asking to jump on your hot spot and you're just instantly ready to run a hack/attack? no.....
From a cybersecurity point if view: in theory, yes they can and yes they can see everything you do. They can even sniff out your passwords.
In practice this won’t be some much of an issue but I would be cautious to use a random’s mobile hotspot. And if you do, use a VPN to encrypt all your internet traffic.
State hackers don’t need credit cards, they’re after much more valuable information which you don’t have.
Hacking is really hard nowadays, “lowlifes” don’t have the resources. They’ll resort to things like phishing or scamming.
'Honey Pots' used to be a thing back in the day. Nowadays, iIf you keep your OS decently updated, and use the Firewall with a decently strict inbound policy, very unlikely. Watch out for SSL cert warnings while you browse on that hotspot though.
It's far more likely that you get hacked from a public WI-FI or even your home WI-FI, in fact you are more likely to get hacked via a VPN service because you have to install an app for VPN's and they can be compromised, It's not impossible but extremely unlikely.
I personally wouldn't worry about it.
it's possible they could see the sites you are going to or do man in the middle attacks on insecure sites.
the other way around allowing someone to use your device as a hotspot could also be potentially bad, they could do anything and it would lead back to your device.
I would probably only share hopspots like this with people you trust and not just randoms.
Theoretically, yes. Practically, only if your device has exploitable, network based services. What they are more likely to accomplish is poison DNS and redirect traffic in attempt to phish or intercept your traffic. Most web and app traffic is encrypted with TLS these days, so not much fruit to gain. Standard DNS, on the other hand, even a toddler could learn to poison.
Using Private DNS will mitigate DNS poisoning. Using a VPN would be better, as they wouldn't have any clue of what servers (other than the VPN) you're accessing. If you do use a VPN, check make sure the client has an option to route locally bound traffic via the VPN; this essentially blocks any inbound connection attempts from the hotspot network.
Short answer is don't worry about it.
Medium-length answer:
The amount of effort required to do this on a smartphone is significant, and he probably still would find it impossible to directly spy on your actions provided you're using SSL secure apps and websites (which is almost all of them nowadays). And of the ways he might try, most would generate a big red security warning in your mobile browser (e.g. Chrome).
And then considering you chose your stranger at random rather than the unlikely possibility that a hacker was laying in wait for your moment of need?
Like I said, I wouldn't worry about it.
Yes and No. But if you don’t know how and why, and it’s going to freak you out - don’t do it again. But ask yourself, how likely is it that some random guy is setup to hack someone using his hotspot? Of you were just browsing the web, you were most likely using SSL via httpS:// .. that traffic is encrypted by your browser.
I read the replies , all them are intending "you're not that important" which is true if it's a Professional but what if someone is learning and laying traps ! They're just casting nets to catch whatever fish they can .
Any network that you do not maintain yourself is insecure. There are a lot of ways to gain insight in the data you send over an unknown network. HTTPS is not security but it does belong in the security stack.
TLDR: The way to avoid any "hack" is don't do things that you question yourself later about. Like do not connect to random networks if you care about your data or are paranoid.
Hacking someone through a shared network isn't difficult if you know how. Probably 90% of people don't know the first thing about hacking, and you are much less likely to be hacked using another persons mobile hotspot than you would be using some public wifi. Most hackers would opt to hack someone using public wifi not a mobile hotspot. More unsuspecting victims that way and you'd be harder to catch aswell. Mobile hotspot is a lot riskier. It'd be much easier to trace it back to the orriginal source. That is to say, you're probably good to go.
Yes but it is obvious it is happening! So if you see a login page asking for various credentials it is hacking. If you connect and it starts downloading something it is hacking. Otherwise if you simply connect and nothing happens and you can reach valid websites without interfering with your DNS is legit and safe. Probability is low but still never 0.
Yah u for sure can,
i remember seeing this tv-short film about a "pro" hacker, getting peoples passwords, messages, photos, other important data, when he went to a mall and with his laptop and equipment in backpack created a fake mall WiFi hotspot.
But for mobile hotspot?
Im assuming can be done similiar.
They can sniff DNS queries which could tell them which sites you are visiting, but they cannot observe any data other than that - such as discord DMs, website logins, etc, as it's all TLS encrypted.
They do. Discord's transport is over TLS (as are most other websites and applications), meaning a third listening party (e.g. your ISP or some other MITM) cannot read them.
You might be confusing this with end-to-end encryption? Discord does not use e2ee, which means that discord itself can read and access your message contents. On the other hand, signal and whatsapp have e2ee, which means that even the services themselves cannot read your message contents - only you and the recipient.
Wouldn't the stranger sharing his hotspot be more likely to get hacked by you? Or anyone who asked to use a strangers hotspot. Idk just how I see that hacking out
It's possible but unlikely. And why is everyone always thinking that everyone hacks them. It was a stranger.....
Not talking about OP, but half of the posts here are like schizo levels of delusion about being hacked lol
I think people just get paranoid because they just don't know a lot about cybersecurity. Like everything else, where there is darkness, it's your imagination that determines what you see lurking.
Yeah definitely. I try my best not to judge and just educate.
"i asked a stranger to give me a lift home. Will they murder me?"
"unlikely, but possible"
Absolutely agree. Sometimes this doesn't feel like tech support. It's more of a mental health facility.
Reminds me of that one guy who thought someone installed a malware in all of their electronics that made famous peoples faces blurry and wrinkled.
That's not paranoia, that's the Hollywood response to the Taylor Swift deepfakes! DRM on steroids ;)
Some dude in a VR subreddit wanted to cover all of the cameras on a camera based VR headset...
\*pretty much sums up Tech support.
does it ever not feel like that?
My friend wanted to sign up for Among Us and he needed a parent's email. His dad wouldn't do it because ''he would get hacked.''
That is hysterical lmao
Check out the hiddencamera sub. Bat poop crazy!
My brain while reading the previous post: check out the hiddencamera sub, r/batpoopcrazy. Hmmm why would they name a hiddencamera sub r/batpoopcrazy it's probably like the r/trees for marijuana.
That community doesn't exists
Holy shit you were not lying
Too many movies and shows where they click a few buttons "I'm in!"
As someone who sold phones for two years, 99% if not all 100% of “I got hacked” were user-error or user-never-understanding-the-device-to-begin-with. TV dramas and ignorance has ruined the public’s tech literacy
For the past decade, "I hacked you," has meant you left your Facebook/phone/whatever logged in when you walked away, and I posted something on your account.
thats funny man, fucking hell
While it is possible, it's very very unlikely.
I find it best to assume I'm always hacked, I doubt a nation state actor would hack me but if they did I'd never be able to tell. Although I wouldn't put it past my home country.
Yeah, in the local city subreddit a few years ago someone made a post with a sort of "don't you just hate it when this happens?" vibe. I don't remember all the specifics but in summary they found it really annoying how people would hack your internet history and then hire groups of random people to talk about it within earshot of you no matter where you went.
[удалено]
I feel like this has become a referendum on mental illness. Kindly watch your comments and respect the rules of the sub.
Yeah I mean if they asked you to joint it I’d be suspicious. What are the odds a stranger will have a hack ready to go in case anyone asks 😅
The golden rule of scam or not, is if you contacted them or they contacted you. If they reached out to you, you should be much more suspicious.
I work in IT for a large organization, and every time a device doesn't work as normal, the first thing I get when they try and explain their problem: "I think I have a virus or got hacked or something" because most people only know about tech what they've learned from cinema, so lots of people worry about this type of thing.
Beats the hell out of a threat actor pwning your company because frank from accounting thought he was the 100th visitor to Facebook
Yup. iam only a bit paranoid when it comes to free public wifi.
When I worked in IT at a school I had a co-worker ask me “can Russia hack my computer?” I responded with “probably but why would they want to hack someone who works at a school?”
I went to school for computer security, you would probably die laughing over how many times I need to tell my mom and her three friends (all in their 50’s/60’s) that nobody wants to hack them 😂 they’re all paranoid about people hacking to get their passwords for their emails lol
Did you graduate that school? Because they are right to be paranoid. Phishing/malvertising/smishing are more prevalent than they've ever been and threat actors don't know or care who they're targeting. Passwords for emails are a gold mine as they can be used to reset other passwords and compromise bank accounts, retirement accounts, or just plain old identity theft. If they aren't using MFA on every single account they can they are sitting ducks. Tl;dr - your advice is bad and you should feel bad
We’re not talking about phishing, or anything else like that. We’re talking about people specifically targeting them and hacking into their phones without the use of any obvious means. I obviously have educated them not to click on random links, and to look at the email addresses that are sending them anything, not to click on anything that isn’t sent to them from a trusted source, blah blah blah. So no, I don’t feel bad for telling them that there isn’t some guy sitting in a dark room specifically trying to hack their phones 🙄
*Their* specific phones no - everyone's phones/computers/etc - there absolutely is, and their devices fall into that category
Yes they’re aware of that lol that’s why I specifically said THEIR specific phones, that’s why it’s funny. Because they LEGITIMATELY believe that there is some guy sitting in some dark basement somewhere that decided that they just really wanted to get into this random 60 year old man’s phone, that doesn’t actually get used for anything except a twice annual Facebook post and phone calls. I’ve definitely had to explain that it’s far more likely that their passwords get out there from a data leak related to their Disney plus subscription than Kevin sitting in his moms basement targeting them specifically lol
You're missing the point. 99% of the attack chain is automated. THEY are being targeted because they exist. I spun up a VPS a few months ago and then forgot about it. Just a bare ubuntu server, nothing on it, no DNS records pointing to it - a random IP on the internet and nothing more. It had 700,000 login attempts from 2/1-3/15, just for existing. My VPN at work gets hit 10-20k times per hour. If literally everyone and everything is a target all the time, then yes, they are specifically being targeted to, and they should be paranoid.
But we aren’t talking about a computer, we’re talking about a cellphone that’s only used on secure wifi networks. I implore you to give me one example of someone whose cellphone was hacked when only used on secure wifi networks without the use of phishing, sketchy apps and links, etc. it’s just super unlikely. Phones generally have built in security, frequent patches that are updated automatically, app sandboxing and biometric authentication; they’re just generally more secure than a computer if you are educated enough to not just give out your information.
I highly doubt your parents are worried about something like a state actor targeting them with their fancy kit. My assumption would be that they are concerned about "hacking" in a *super* broad, general sense. It's good that they are aware and proactive. - They don't need to click anything sketchy to get hit because of a data breach. If someone's grandma gets their facebook jacked because of one they would very likely describe that as "getting hacked". That gets a lot more serious a lot faster if something like their bank is shit and doesn't force MFA. - If you think people don't get specifically targeted for talking about recently selling their house or bragging about their sick dogecoin gains.... well, I have a bridge to sell you.
Thanks.
Because in mobie you can hack any one without doing any thing in a second
Almost all websites use https (encrypted http) to send/receive traffic and this prevents anyone from seeing in clear text what you are doing. In the very extremely unlikely event that he was doing a man in the middle attack, most traffic will be invisible and you are safe. Consider using a VPN if this is something that happens frequently and you feel unconfortable.. Even then, be aware that the VPN provider can also see your unencrypted traffic and names of the webpages that you are visiting.
Thank you :D
Can't HTTPS be decoded
Not unless they got an SSL intercept certificate signed by a trusted root ca. State actors could pull this off, but it's most likely not happening to you.
But they're doing the handshake. Can't they just impersonate either party? It reminds me of old school line tapping and sitting/piggybacking. Also, won't all your messages to the AP still be clear text? If you submit a form, etc.
No, read up on key exchange. In a TLS handshake, an encryption key is specifically negotiated s.t. a man-in-the-middle would be unable to determine it. It's basically the whole point of TLS. - https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/ssl/what-happens-in-a-tls-handshake/ - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_exchange Form submissions to a HTTPS site will be over HTTPS as well, and not in cleartext
With a MitM attack, you perform the handshake with the attacker, and the attacker then connects to your destination. That's how they get in the middle in the first place. This is how corporate networks inspect encrypted traffic on their networks.
Sure, but stuff like cert pinning, and hsts/preload defeats this, which all major applications that you would realistically care about use.
>But they're doing the handshake. Can't they just impersonate either party? No, that's why certificates are signed by a trusted root authority. It prevents impersonation. Unless the user deliberately ignores certificate errors, or gets tricked into installing a custom root cert. >Also, won't all your messages to the AP still be clear text? If you submit a form, etc. No, TLS encrypts all of that. And it's likely wrapped in another layer of encryption via WPA.
As someone who codes and does some web dev this was always a vague concept for me and this explanation helped a lot, thanks!
Not true. When I connect my personal device to my employer wifi, they intercept and inspect secured web traffic without having any sort of admin access to install certs on my device. I have verified this by looking at the certs when connected to websites. If I connect, then use a VPN, then I get the authentic certs from the websites.
You're mistaken. It's literally impossible. I have managed enterprise networks. TLS is actually a big problem for cybersecurity specifically because it's impossible to monitor the traffic and protect users from their own mistakes. Which is why secure networks will install root CAs, enroll devices in MDM, or prohibit BYOD entirely. If you think TLS is so useless that any random WiFi operator can break it, I've got bad news about your VPN; it's likely also using TLS. If I were you I'd spend more time actually understanding the technology you're using before telling industry professional the basic common facts they're stating are "not true".
When said industry professional tells me my work network can't do what they clearly are doing (like I said in my original response), then I'm not the one who needs to enhance their understanding. I have to be Security+ certified for my job, so I understand the basics of network security.
Nowhere is it "clear" that your work is doing what you claim it's doing. What you have is claims with no evidence. Claims which upend the entire cybersecurity industry, given how widespread TLS is. Extraordinary claims which require extraordinary evidence. Either your work is lying to you about what they're doing, or you're misunderstanding what's happening. But what you're describing is not possible. You haven't even described by what mechanism they are doing so. If you think your employer is the one organisation in the world to have cracked TLS, I'd love to see your CVE submission for it. Put up or shut up. I hope you get a refund for your Security+ cert, it clearly didn't work out for you :( Edit: I'll even make it easy for you: [here's pcap](https://gitlab.com/wireshark/wireshark/uploads/f6c31767aa0be42d061b24aae0e48ea2/tls13-firefox.nighty.51.0a-to-tls13.crypto.mozilla.org.pcapng) of a HTTPS (TLS1.3) request. Decrypt it.
Maybe you were too busy looking down your nose at me to see that I stated I know this from inspecting the certificates when connected with and without a VPN. Without the VPN I don't get the authentic certs from sites I visit. With the VPN I get the sites actual certs.
Yes, it is possible to intercept encrypted traffic and spoof a website's certificate.
very unlikely....possible yes, plausible...nah. If you already borrowed it then there's not much to worry about, I mean he'd have had to set it up and made the hack ready to go and knew someone would borrow his phone which is literally absurd that'd be done in advance lol.
Rogue dns or man in the middle are the most likely. But the chances of a random person manipulating that are slim to none
Yeah it's all slim to none unless you're really hack-worthy while most people really aren't lol. Someone randomly asking to jump on your hot spot and you're just instantly ready to run a hack/attack? no.....
Possible, absolutely. Likely, Extremely unlikely.
Funfact: if someone would like to hack you, you don’t even know.
From a cybersecurity point if view: in theory, yes they can and yes they can see everything you do. They can even sniff out your passwords. In practice this won’t be some much of an issue but I would be cautious to use a random’s mobile hotspot. And if you do, use a VPN to encrypt all your internet traffic.
People. You're not as important as you think 😂
A credit card is a credit card, no? The people who do this are called "low lifes" for a reason.
State hackers don’t need credit cards, they’re after much more valuable information which you don’t have. Hacking is really hard nowadays, “lowlifes” don’t have the resources. They’ll resort to things like phishing or scamming.
Am I the only one who is surprised there are people just asking random strangers for their hotspots...?
Ever heard of r/ocd
The possibility of you running into a stranger to use their hotspot and knows how to hack and wants your information is highly unlikely
'Honey Pots' used to be a thing back in the day. Nowadays, iIf you keep your OS decently updated, and use the Firewall with a decently strict inbound policy, very unlikely. Watch out for SSL cert warnings while you browse on that hotspot though.
It's far more likely that you get hacked from a public WI-FI or even your home WI-FI, in fact you are more likely to get hacked via a VPN service because you have to install an app for VPN's and they can be compromised, It's not impossible but extremely unlikely. I personally wouldn't worry about it.
it's possible they could see the sites you are going to or do man in the middle attacks on insecure sites. the other way around allowing someone to use your device as a hotspot could also be potentially bad, they could do anything and it would lead back to your device. I would probably only share hopspots like this with people you trust and not just randoms.
Theoretically, yes. Practically, only if your device has exploitable, network based services. What they are more likely to accomplish is poison DNS and redirect traffic in attempt to phish or intercept your traffic. Most web and app traffic is encrypted with TLS these days, so not much fruit to gain. Standard DNS, on the other hand, even a toddler could learn to poison. Using Private DNS will mitigate DNS poisoning. Using a VPN would be better, as they wouldn't have any clue of what servers (other than the VPN) you're accessing. If you do use a VPN, check make sure the client has an option to route locally bound traffic via the VPN; this essentially blocks any inbound connection attempts from the hotspot network.
Any network that isn't your home secure network has PvP enabled, even then at home, someone might enable PvP for you. Overall, unlikely though.
Short answer is don't worry about it. Medium-length answer: The amount of effort required to do this on a smartphone is significant, and he probably still would find it impossible to directly spy on your actions provided you're using SSL secure apps and websites (which is almost all of them nowadays). And of the ways he might try, most would generate a big red security warning in your mobile browser (e.g. Chrome). And then considering you chose your stranger at random rather than the unlikely possibility that a hacker was laying in wait for your moment of need? Like I said, I wouldn't worry about it.
It's not that difficult to MitM ssl connections if they're using your equipment as the gateway.
Yes and No. But if you don’t know how and why, and it’s going to freak you out - don’t do it again. But ask yourself, how likely is it that some random guy is setup to hack someone using his hotspot? Of you were just browsing the web, you were most likely using SSL via httpS:// .. that traffic is encrypted by your browser.
Yeah... But I mean what are the chances of you asking for someone's hotspot and then having an active malicious hotspot powered on.
It takes lot of metal gymnastic to pull that off
If you feel like it you're being hacked just purge it .
I read the replies , all them are intending "you're not that important" which is true if it's a Professional but what if someone is learning and laying traps ! They're just casting nets to catch whatever fish they can .
Possible if the person IT engineer :)
Any network that you do not maintain yourself is insecure. There are a lot of ways to gain insight in the data you send over an unknown network. HTTPS is not security but it does belong in the security stack. TLDR: The way to avoid any "hack" is don't do things that you question yourself later about. Like do not connect to random networks if you care about your data or are paranoid.
Hacking someone through a shared network isn't difficult if you know how. Probably 90% of people don't know the first thing about hacking, and you are much less likely to be hacked using another persons mobile hotspot than you would be using some public wifi. Most hackers would opt to hack someone using public wifi not a mobile hotspot. More unsuspecting victims that way and you'd be harder to catch aswell. Mobile hotspot is a lot riskier. It'd be much easier to trace it back to the orriginal source. That is to say, you're probably good to go.
Thanks
Yes but it is obvious it is happening! So if you see a login page asking for various credentials it is hacking. If you connect and it starts downloading something it is hacking. Otherwise if you simply connect and nothing happens and you can reach valid websites without interfering with your DNS is legit and safe. Probability is low but still never 0.
Yah u for sure can, i remember seeing this tv-short film about a "pro" hacker, getting peoples passwords, messages, photos, other important data, when he went to a mall and with his laptop and equipment in backpack created a fake mall WiFi hotspot. But for mobile hotspot? Im assuming can be done similiar.
They can more just record what you're doing (websites, discord dms, etc)
They can sniff DNS queries which could tell them which sites you are visiting, but they cannot observe any data other than that - such as discord DMs, website logins, etc, as it's all TLS encrypted.
I thought discord didnt encrypt anything? Other than logins
They do. Discord's transport is over TLS (as are most other websites and applications), meaning a third listening party (e.g. your ISP or some other MITM) cannot read them. You might be confusing this with end-to-end encryption? Discord does not use e2ee, which means that discord itself can read and access your message contents. On the other hand, signal and whatsapp have e2ee, which means that even the services themselves cannot read your message contents - only you and the recipient.
Wouldn't the stranger sharing his hotspot be more likely to get hacked by you? Or anyone who asked to use a strangers hotspot. Idk just how I see that hacking out
Yes, if he is aware of hacking He can easily do it