Behind the Hack: A Wi-Fi Demo

Yeah.

So I figured we'll start with something simple, something that's been in the news, and anyone can do it.

I'm gonna show just how easy it is, and what I'm talking about is a captive portal.

You might say, "Well, what's a captive portal?" And that's just an access point, a wireless access point that serves up a webpage and says, "Please log in." We've seen these before-

Yeah

... right at a hotel, at the airport, at Starbucks.

Or at the coffee shop.

Yeah.

Yeah, so you connect to the Wi-Fi network, and I, I think one of the advantages here is that you do get the more secure Wi-Fi as opposed to just a, an open Wi-Fi network with no encryption on it, right? So-

Well, in theory you feel that way because you're logging in, but it's still an open network, right?

Yeah.

It...

The open network, as we talked about last time, that just means there's no encryption on it.

You get-

Right

...

so you get this webpage sent in the clear.

Depending on the other protocols, you know, it's probably using HTTPS, so that-

Yeah

... would encrypt it there.

But the Wi-Fi traffic itself isn't usually encrypted because you'd need a password to get to the network.

So that's the difference here, right? It's, you're not sending a password to the network to authenticate.

Instead, you're connecting to an open network, it says Starbucks guest or-

Yeah

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