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Recently, a mobile phone user encountered a suspicious situation when connecting to a free wifi network.
Mr. Duc Huy, Hai Ba Trung District, Hanoi, said that while surfing Facebook using free wifi at a coffee shop on Trieu Viet Vuong Street (Hai Ba Trung District, Hanoi), he clicked on a link to a government agency's website but was redirected to a strange website.
Before that, the browser had shown a warning: “This website does not use a secure connection. Your personal information, such as passwords or credit card numbers, may not be secure when connecting to this website.” However, Mr. Huy still chose “Continue to visit the website”. Immediately after that, from Facebook, the phone was directed to a strange website with the extension “.live” instead of the electronic information portal of the competent authority. A notification also appeared saying that if he completed the survey, he could receive an iPhone 14 Pro.
Mr. Huy felt suspicious so he did not click on the link again for fear of being infected with malware. Notably, after Mr. Huy turned off the link and accessed the government agency's website again, the "winning" message continued to appear. When he turned off the free wifi network and used the 4G network, all access on the phone returned to normal.
Regarding the above information, the Department of Information Security, Ministry of Information and Communications said that, in essence, the advertising network will sell to others to place billboards, banners, stores, cafes, when accessing the information returned, it can also be posts about fake goods, poor quality goods, or even scams because companies selling advertising on wifi cannot control the content. Therefore, the attached links can be completely infected with malware.
Nowadays, many people have the habit of using passwords to access free wifi networks in public places such as restaurants and cafes. However, along with the convenience, these are also places that contain countless risks that can directly affect users' personal information and wallets.
The Information Security Department recommends that mobile users should be vigilant when accessing new wifi systems, especially in public places such as hotels, restaurants, and cafes. Because at that time, the user's connection will depend on the settings of the wifi provider.
In case you encounter strange information when using a public network, you should ignore it. In particular, only perform important transactions on trusted networks such as wifi at home, at work or 3G/4G network from your phone.
