My office laptop got ransomware at a Starbucks in Atlanta

I was working on a client proposal at a Starbucks in Midtown Atlanta when my screen just froze and a ransom note popped up. Turns out I had connected to a fake free wifi network that looked exactly like the real Starbucks guest wifi. I immediately unplugged the ethernet adapter and shut the laptop down completely. After getting back to the office, IT found and quarantined the infection from a backup from 12 hours earlier. So I lost just that day's work, not the whole project. Has anyone else gotten tricked by those fake public wifi hotspots with similar names?

2 comments

2 Comments

chen.phoenix28d ago

Never considered that even the wifi names could be faked that well, but now I'm double-checking every network before connecting just in case.

ramirez.caleb28d ago

Right? "Double-checking every network" sounds a lot like my life now too @chen.phoenix, guess we're all paranoid IT security experts until we finally just give up and click "Connect Anyway".