The coffee shop wifi trap at Denver Union Station got me good

I was killing time before a train in Denver Union Station and hopped on their free wifi to check my bank account, totally ignoring the popup about accepting terms. Two days later my card got hit with $47 in charges from some sketchy food delivery app I never opened. Has anyone else gotten burned by public wifi at a major transit hub, and do you actually use a VPN on your phone now or just risk it?

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1 Comment

ivan_schmidt21d ago

Wait, were you on the actual official station wifi or one of those fake "free wifi" networks that pop up with names like "Denver_WiFi_Free"? Because I've seen people spoof those at train stations and airports all the time. Did you check the network name before connecting, or did you just tap the first thing that showed up? I always look for the sticker on the wall now because those clone networks are way too common. And yeah, that bank charge thing sounds like classic session hijacking, they probably grabbed your login cookies right when you hit that terms page.

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