Forensic Investigation Department reveals over 50% have vulnerable Wi-Fi protection — and the risks

An internal cybersecurity investigation project showed that over 50% of Wi-Fi networks could be hacked and exploited with little-to-no effort, but you can protect yourself better.

Copyright: Dwayne Hards.

The first mistake that many people make is using their Wi-Fi router's default password. This means that it can easily be brute forced (guessed) and, therefore, exploited. Upon successful exploitation, hackers can take over Wi-Fi settings, spread malware, MITM sensitive data, remotely hack devices on the affected LAN, conduct illegal activities on your network, and even redirect your web traffic, as well as install a malicious proxy server and/or https certificate without detection. To better protect your network, you should use a strong password with random numbers, letters, words, spaces, and characters. You should also keep an eye out for any suspicious activity and regularly change your default password.

Not using a VPN or the Tor network on open Wi-Fi networks is risky, as hackers could redirect your traffic, MITM https encryption and inspect/modify it, spread malware, and even potentially backdoor/hack your devices, as well as install malicious https certs or proxies. And rogue (fake) Wi-Fi hotspots are another major risk, too, so you should always be sure you're connecting to a legitimate network with strong protection and not some hacker's cloned hotspot on a local/remote device.

To protect yourself, there are many things you can do, such as: use a VPN or Tor, set strong passwords, verify open internet hotspots' legitimacy, check your https cert provider, and monitor networks for suspicious-looking activity.

Some of the free mainstream Wi-Fi forensic tools used by the IID are mitmproxy, Wireshark, and Aircrack-ng. It also uses certain Linux distros — like Kali Linux and Parrot OS — and private tools, too.