Public wifi at my local coffee shop was leaking data like a sieve

I stopped into Brew Lab downtown for an hour yesterday and noticed their guest network asked for my full email and phone number before connecting. When I looked closer, I saw the login page was running on an old HTTP version that sent all the data in plain text. Do you guys ever report stuff like this or just avoid the wifi and move on?

2 comments

Log in to join the discussion

Log In

2 Comments

henry_palmer243mo ago

Man, that's brutal... glad you caught it before handing over your info.

5

henry_palmer243mo ago

I still remember when that local coffee shop chain down on 4th street had the exact same issue and I emailed them twice about it. Got some bot reply that basically said "thanks for your concern" and then nothing changed for months. Did you happen to check whether Brew Lab is using that same cheap router firmware that stores everything in a text file on the network? A lot of these smaller shops buy the first $40 router they find on Amazon without realizing how outdated the security is.

3