An Australian man has appeared in court to face nine charges for alleged cybercrime offences, after allegedly establishing fake free WiFi access points at several Australian airports and domestic flights, in order to capture the personal data of anyone connecting to them.
The 42yo West Australian man's plot was uncovered after the employees of one airline reported a suspicious WiFi network during a domestic flight, which led to an Australian Federal Police (AFP) investigation in April this year.
The man was stopped by AFP at Perth Airport on April 19, after returning on a flight, and a search of his baggage uncovered a portable wireless access device, a laptop and a mobile phone. At the time, AFP also searched his home and followed this up with another search of his home in early May, at which time he was arrested and charged.
It will be alleged that the man used the portable wireless access device to create evil twin free WiFi networks at airports in Perth, Melbourne and Adelaide, on domestic flights and at locations linked to his previous employment.
Evil Twin attacks use the identical WiFI network name as the legitimate one but is, in fact, controlled by the cyber-criminal. Those using the bogus-but-identical free WiFi are required to sign in using their email or social media logins and these are fed straight to the cyber-crim.
Police are determining the extent of the alleged offending, although initial analysis has allegedly identified dozens of personal credentials belonging to other people and fraudulent WiFi pages.
The AFP have used this case as a cautionary tale about logging on to any public WiFi networks.
“When connecting to a free WiFi network, you shouldn’t have to enter any personal details," said AFP Western Command Cybercrime Detective Inspector, Andrea Coleman. “If you use public WiFi hotspots, install a reputable virtual private network (VPN) on your devices, which encrypts and secures your data. And don’t do anything sensitive like banking ... we recommend turning off your phone's WiFi before going out in public."
