Creepy Evil Twins–And Tips on Avoiding them

Evil twins are wireless networks that pretend to offer trusty Wi-Fi connections to the Internet like those available at some coffee shop, hotels and conferences. On a laptop screen, an evil twin Wi-Fi hotspot can look identical to one of the tens of thousands of legitimate public networks that consumers log on to every day, sometimes even copying the sign-in page. But that’s just a front, and fraudsters who set up the connections attempt to capture any passwords or credit card numbers that consumers using the link may type.

The WSJ reports, though that there is a way to avoid the fraudsters: You should turn your laptop’s Wi-Fi function off when not in use to avoid accidentally connecting to an evil twin, and some advise that you should only sign up for Wi-fi service from a fixed line internet access point, so you don’t have to send out those credit card numbers in a vulnerable wireless connection.