Have you ever been hacked on an open CG WiFi system?

docj wrote:

paulcardoza wrote:
If someone specifically seeks you out to be hacked, there is ample technology to out there to allow them to do so. HOWEVER, the odds of these criminals targeting campgrounds or McDonald's WIFI are infinitesimally small.

The level of paranoia is astounding. If someone hacks your credit card, you are protect by the issuer. If someone hacks your gmail account, change the password or open a new account. Online banking is extremely safe, unless you are stupid when setting your password. If they get into my PC, they're going to get loads of picture of my dogs, grand-kids and not much else.

Well said! We seem to live in a society overwhelmed by fear. Yes, it's sometimes possible to encounter wifi system designed to scam users but the chances of finding one at your local campground is next to zero. Any hacker worth his salt is going to want to get a reasonable return on his investment and that's unlikely to be by hacking the emails of a bunch of snowbirds.

...Until hackers start to think that maybe Florida, Texas and Arizona in the winter area full of Seniors with limited computer skills who refuse to upgrade from insecure Windows XP because they will be spied on by Microsoft if they go to Windows 10, actually think their MacBook does not need anti-virus, with a house paid off, lots of savings, a juicy pension, a $100,000 RV all crammed together in rows in a RV park with 500 hundred sites where one hacker could hit every single one of them just by parking on the side of the highway. That actually sounds like a much higher ROI than sitting in Grand Central Station in NYC all day trying to hack a bunch of 20 somethings that are tech savvy, house poor and living paycheck to paycheck.
We also live in a society who thinks that it won't be me, just like every single person that has been hacked that I have investigated. Don't be paranoid, but also don't be naïve and think that you are any more safe than anyone else. Safe is not measured by who you are or where you live, it is measured by what you do or don't do.

paulcardoza wrote:
If someone specifically seeks you out to be hacked, there is ample technology to out there to allow them to do so. HOWEVER, the odds of these criminals targeting campgrounds or McDonald's WIFI are infinitesimally small.

The level of paranoia is astounding. If someone hacks your credit card, you are protect by the issuer. If someone hacks your gmail account, change the password or open a new account. Online banking is extremely safe, unless you are stupid when setting your password. If they get into my PC, they're going to get loads of picture of my dogs, grand-kids and not much else.

Well said! We seem to live in a society overwhelmed by fear. Yes, it's sometimes possible to encounter wifi system designed to scam users but the chances of finding one at your local campground is next to zero. Any hacker worth his salt is going to want to get a reasonable return on his investment and that's unlikely to be by hacking the emails of a bunch of snowbirds.

Try Cyberghost. They have a free, basic paid and premium paid service. I have been using them for 2 years and have never noticed speed issues with their paid service.

naturist wrote:
Never happened to me, but using any open wifi system is open to being hacked by anybody within range of the signal. That is why when I use an open wifi hot spot, I do not attempt to access anything that requires a password from me to use, not just banks but email and Facebook.

I heartily recommend using a VPN on such hot spots. You can then do your email, Facebook, and even banking with a high degree of certainty you won't be hacked or have your data stolen. I use one called GoTrusted, it costs me $6 a month, and works on my laptop as well as my iDevices, but there are many others.

A VPN encrypts all traffic between my device and the VPN company servers. So if a bad actor is listening in, all he gets is garbage, he can't even tell what sites I'm visiting. People who rely on public hot spots really owe it to themselves to have available such security.

I remember using a VPN a long time ago (I think it was called "Hotspot VPN"). I stopped using it after a while because I felt it was slowing things down. Just my perception. I'd like to use one again. Can anyone offer a recommendation base on their experience?

If someone specifically seeks you out to be hacked, there is ample technology to out there to allow them to do so. HOWEVER, the odds of these criminals targeting campgrounds or McDonald's WIFI are infinitesimally small.

The level of paranoia is astounding. If someone hacks your credit card, you are protect by the issuer. If someone hacks your gmail account, change the password or open a new account. Online banking is extremely safe, unless you are stupid when setting your password. If they get into my PC, they're going to get loads of picture of my dogs, grand-kids and not much else.

If you ever get an email saying you password has been changed, close the browser, open another browser session and then try to log into your google account or whatever other account the email says has been changed.

I don't profess to be an expert but I do know to never follow links from anybody.

Even if it was possible, and I had the technological ability to carry it out, why would I, as a park owner, want to hack someone's Google Account? And I will double down on that question by reminding everyone that 95% of my guests use a credit card at check in, so I already have their account number, expiration date and can see their digit CVC code if I ask to see the card to verify their signature (which other threads on these forums seem to believe is some kind of high tech security trap enabled on their cards.).
Looking thru billions of pages of family photos and videos, nonsensical personal emails and all the other junk people send over the internet every day looking for an account number and password to some account that I have no idea if it contains twenty bucks, twenty million or is their personal senior citizen gay porn account sounds tedious at best. Then when I hit the mother load, my heist of the century is traced directly back to me and my parks, earning me a 10 year paid vacation with "Honky-Killer" the Gangbanger from the Hood just doesn't sound like a good plan to me.

I think it much more likely that the OP got a phishing email that looked like it was from google. If you clicked on any links in that email that would be how they got in.

If you ever get an email saying you password has been changed, close the browser, open another browser session and then try to log into your google account or whatever other account the email says has been changed.

LittleBill wrote:


I made a mistake this comment was incorrect i have learned something new today. That said WPA2 encryption can be cracked.

your second comment is also nonsense, i can packet trace everything on my network, wireless/wired etc and see every single packet that is passed as long its not going over some form listed above

wow... the amount of incorrect info in here is hilarious

Sure it can be cracked. But not easily. If you're lucky you might get into someone's session in a short time, but realistically it can take days to crack an encrypted session. Not only is WPA encrypted, but so is the SSL traffic. Without the website's private key...

And yes you can trace all your packets. But you can't read all the encrypted data except for the data coming from your own machine. As said above, it's not an easy thing to do.

Hilarious yes, and you haven't helped. You already admitted you learned something new, something that to me is really basic stuff to know in the WiFi world.

NHIrish wrote:


The take away for us non technical types is to use a vpn...I even use it on my home network...seamless protection.

And that sir is the single best answer to the issue!

3oaks wrote:

LittleBill wrote:
wow... the amount of incorrect info in here is hilarious

And we are only to take your word that yours isn't? :S

It's just so true, and on just about every topic....you know what they say about opinions and free advice, right...

The take away for us non technical types is to use a vpn...I even use it on my home network...seamless protection.