Cybersecurity: What is a Man-in-the-Middle attack and is public WiFi compromised? 

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A Man-in-the-Middle attack is designed to invade a victim’s privacy. It involves intercepting traffic, coming from one computer, and sometimes sending it on to the original recipient. An “Evil Twin” attack is when an attacker sets up a malicious network that hijacks the hotel’s network with a similar name.

In MITM attacks, nation-state bad actors and other cybercriminals can use stolen intellectual property to counterfeit their own versions of digital products. They can also use stolen business data to trick company executives into transferring funds to the criminal. 

The perpetrator can cause all sorts of damage.  They can insert their own digital wallet to steal cryptocurrency. They can redirect a browser to a malicious website to infect the system with malware. Or they are able to obtain information undetected for their own purposes.

Why use public Wi-Fi for a cyberattack? 

Hotel and public Wi-Fi networks are a common source of attack because neither the router nor a connected computer verifies its identity.