Australian police have arrested the man on nine charges of cybercrime-related offenses for opening the fake public Wi-Fi. He is accused of having created this network through a mobile wireless access point to steal user information.
He set up “evil twin” Wi-Fi networks at airports, flights, and other places linked to his former job in order to harvest users and their e-mail or social media logins, authorities said. After that, such login details were routed to the man’s own devices.
This technique was reported to have obtained hundreds of credentials. Such information would be used by the man to access the accounts of other consumers to commit other computer crimes. The relevant sensitive information such as banking login credentials and other data could be stolen from them.
One of the strange in-flight Wi-Fi networks was discovered by the airline worker. An Australian airline that is not mentioned thus was contacted to report the presence of such Wi-Fi to the authorities. It is the police that managed the case and earlier month, on May, had the suspect arrested.
According to the Australian Broadcasting Corp., the man, Michael Clapsis, appeared before the Perth Magistrates Court in Australia. He has since been granted liberty on “strict” bail, with limited access to the internet. Besides this, he was required to hand in his passport.
Yet, a LinkedIn profile, since taken down, appeared to suggest that Clapsis may have once worked for a shipping corporation. He is charged with knowingly causing impairment to electronic communication without authority among other counts. Clapsis also faces charges for possession or control of data with the intention to commit a serious offense.
It also charges the man with accessing restricted data without authority or modifying that data. He is charged with dishonestly dealing in or obtaining personal financial information. Lastly, he is charged with possessing identification information with intent to commit and offense. Clapsis is due to reappear in court in August.
There are plenty of ways in which the information from a victim is stolen through evil twin attacks. Normally, these free Wi-Fi networks appear to be genuine in nature and normally these free Wi-Fi networks demand login details that are supposed to steal your data. Genuine Wi-Fi networks are never supposed to ask you to log in with your social media credentials. It is recommended that public Wi-Fi be avoided, and a VPN is better to use if possible.
