Phishing, Keylogging, and Rogue Access Points

Code can be patched, but people can be fooled, so attackers aim there first. Phishing is a message, usually email or text, built to look like it came from someone you trust: a bank, a coworker, your own IT department. It copies the logo, the sender name, the tone, and the layout of a real login page, then asks you to click a link and type your password. The link leads to a fake page that looks identical to the real one, and once you type your credentials there, the attacker has them. Keylogging works differently: malicious software installs itself on a device and silently records every keystroke, including passwords typed on completely legitimate sites, then sends that log back to the attacker.

A rogue access point attacks the network instead of the login page. An attacker sets up a wireless hotspot with a trustworthy-sounding name, like a cafe's real wifi name with a slight variation, and waits for devices to connect. Once a phone or laptop joins, all its unencrypted traffic passes through the attacker's equipment before reaching the internet, so anything sent in plain text, including passwords, is visible on the way through.

These three techniques connect to the rest of this unit's concern with privacy and security because they all exploit the gap between what a system is designed to protect and what a person can be tricked into giving away voluntarily. Encryption keeps data unreadable if it is intercepted, but phishing and keylogging sidestep encryption entirely by capturing the password before it is ever encrypted, or by getting the user to hand it over directly. No amount of strong cryptography fixes a human being convinced the fake page is real.