How to know if you go onto a fake WiFi hotspot

[vepac]

I was at a doctors office and while I was in the waiting room I decided to check to see if there was free WiFi. There was but as soon as I tapped to connect it said something about the certificate being insecure or something like that. I decided to proceed and then accepted to the terms and conditions and went on. But now I am wondering if I went to a fake one since the whole certificate thing. It did bring me to their website after I accepted and went to history and went to it at home and such and it was the legit website but however I don't remember seeing any advertisement for the free service. What do you think?

 

[Guytronic]

Interesting thought there...
Might be a great way for an unscrupulous thief to gain information.
Quite scary actually.

 

[vepac]

Next time I go there I am going to ask if it is theirs.

 

[Laura Knotek]

Next time I go there I am going to ask if it is theirs.

That's a smart plan.

You might want to see some of these articles as well.

http://netsecurity.about.com/od/secureyourwifinetwork/a/The-Dangers-Of-Evil-Twin-Wi-Fi-Hotspots.htm

http://www.breakthesecurity.com/2014/04/evil-twin-attack-fake-wifi-hack.html

http://www.cnet.com/how-to/6-ways-to-use-public-wi-fi-hot-spots-safely/

 

[anon(5379091)]

Oh, that sounds bad. Never use Wi-Fi you don't know/trust, specially when you were warned about something being wrong with some certificate.
Scam is not the only thing you should be aware of, there are others attacks that you could have been the victim of, such as man in the middle, etc.
Did you log in to any site or submitted sensitive information while using that wireless connection?
Don't be surprised if they tell you that Wi-Fi is not theirs. There are access points that could be kept inside a cup of Starbucks.

 

[vepac]

Didn't ask me to do anything with usernames or passwords nor did I use the WiFi to enter sensitive information. Just used it to download apps and YouTube videos.