Criminals are hacking into public Wi-Fi devices—at hotels, conference centers, and so on—around the world and changing their DNS settings. The goal is to redirect users to fake login pages and steal their credentials.
Andrew Olpin • August 17, 2026 9:32 AM
Yes, the DNS would direct them to the wrong server, and the attacker could HTTPS encrypt the traffic. The trouble is that no reputable cert issuer will issue some rando a cert for “google.com,” so it’s very likely the certificate won’t be trusted by the browser.
My guess is the attackers will go for HTTP and hope the user doesn’t notice.
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Carl Fink • August 17, 2026 8:10 AM
Would that be compatible with https? Would the fake login page not have the wrong cert, if it even had SSL enabled? Or is the user meant not to notice a redirect from att.net to att.someotherdomain.net or something?