What are Evil Twins?

Evil twins are the wireless version of the phishing scam. An attacker fools wireless users into connecting a laptop or PDA (Palm Pilot) to a tainted hotspot by posing as a legitimate provider. Once you connect to the wireless network, the evil twins can access and steal your login information, in addition to confidential information which can potential lead to identity theft.

Evil twins are “the new frontier” in ID theft, warns Ken Silva, chief security officer at Verisign Inc., a Mountain View, CA company that provides Internet-security services. Hackers in the past have eavesdropped when consumers use legitimate Wi-Fi services in public places. But consumers have been able to use encrypted connections and other techniques for safeguarding their data. (Wall Street Journal) Whereas, in this instance what seems like an encrypted connection may actually be a rogue site for the hackers.

How to Identify the Evil Twins
Because most people typically trust that wireless hubs are secure, the evil twins are very difficult to detect. There is no definitive way of detecting this scam since it is such a new method of identity theft.

Who is at Risk?
Evil twins don’t pose as much of a threat to people connecting to Wi-Fi networks from their homes. These scam artists are looking for large numbers of people using Wi-Fi, for example at an airport lounge.

Recommended Action
In order to ensure that you are always connecting to a secured wireless network, a protection software such as Anonymizer Anonymous Surfing will secure your data sent over a wireless connection while surfing at home, at work, or at the local coffee shop.

Anonymizer Anonymous Surfing

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