Hacker shows how easy it is to take over a city’s public Wi-Fi network

In a perfect example of how public wireless networks can be dangerous for privacy and security, an Israeli hacker showed that he could have taken over the free Wi-Fi network of an entire city.

On his way home from work one day, Amihai Neiderman, the head of research at Israeli cybersecurity firm Equus Technologies, spotted a wireless hotspot that he hadn’t seen before. What made it unusual was that it was in an area with no buildings.

It turned out that the hotspot he saw, advertised as “FREE_TLV,” was part of the citywide free Wi-Fi network set up by the local administration of Tel Aviv, Israel. This made Neiderman wonder: How secure is it?

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