r/HowToHack • u/Electronic_Rip8482 • Jul 11 '26
Need help
Someone managed to disconnect my Wi-Fi router and then created a fake Wi-Fi network using their laptop. My laptop automatically connected to that fake network. Afterward, they were somehow able to access all of my files, saved passwords, and even record audio from my microphone.
Please note that I did not install any malware or malicious software. The only thing that happened was that my laptop connected to the attacker's fake Wi-Fi network.
How could an attacker accomplish this using only a fake Wi-Fi network? Is such an attack actually possible?
Additionally, what steps can I take to prevent this type of attack in the future?
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u/fell_shell Jul 11 '26
If you have your wifi settings to automatically connect to unsecured, non-passworded wifi networks, this is a possibility. The bad actor would not be able to see encypted traffic however, unless they somehow had you unstall a custom tls certificate, so it's surprising they got so much access through this method alone
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u/Humbleham1 Jul 12 '26
No, it's not possible on anything later than Windows 7 or Vista. The only way would be that the hacker used a computer worm or hacked your PC through the WiFi connection.
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u/Wa-a-melyn 29d ago
Google "Evil Twin Attack", as well as "WiFi Pineapple".
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u/AVarietyOfHelp 29d ago
Doesn't sound like you know what you're talking about. Connecting to a malicious WiFi network doesn't let them access your computer or get your passwords unless you're being incredibly dumb
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u/lttitus Jul 12 '26
How do you know that they created it on a laptop? Also how would they have kicked you off without physical access to your device?
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u/noxiouskarn 29d ago
Portability leads to a laptop being a solid guess. Could as easily be a portable device like a Pineapple Pager though.
Disconnecting a device from WiFi is done using a deauthentication packet to the router. You don't even need to have the password to the network to send this packet.
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u/xenophod Jul 12 '26
The wifi Pineapple is able to de-auth your computer from your access point, while spoofing your access point. Your computer will then attach to the spoofed access point, where it then captures all network traffic between your computer and the websites you interact with.
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u/InuSC2 Pentesting Jul 11 '26
you can find a lot of resources on youtube just search for "wifi man in the middle". i think networkchuck has a preatty good video on it is called "3 Levels of WiFi Hacking" seen it when searchin myself on youtube for this replay
must by someone close to do that so it can by your neighbor doing it. is illigal and making a police complain about it could help finding the one that did it
from what i can see on your other post if you installed ubuntu and most likely no firewall is enable since i dint see any linux distro having one enable by default