Hacked personal hotspot?

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Level 1

8 points

Hacked personal hotspot?

I noticed two connections on my personal hotspot while at a coffee shop. I quickly turned it off and when I turned it back on, it showed only one connection which was me. It appears that my personal hotspot password was not changed as I have noticed has happened with others. Maybe I turned it off quickly enough. What benefit would someone have to do this other than for malicious activity? I was using my ipad and had to briefly log into one of my brokerage sites (I have never done this before but assumed my hotspot was secure) Is my hotspot not secure and could they have possibly retrieved passwords from my ipad during this time?

iPhone 5

Posted on Dec 10, 2014 1:24 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Phil0124

Community+ 2024

Level 10

199,381 points

Dec 10, 2014 1:37 PM in response to $IMCaptain

The Hotspot provides access to the internet through your iPhone. Nothing more. There is no direct access to the iPhone or your iPad. Nothing would have been retrieved from either device.

The Hotspot would be visible to everybody close enough and looking for Wireless networks to connect to, but without the password they would not be able to actually connect.

Your best security measure is to change your Hotspot password to something hard to guess.

But as it stands you have nothing to worry about.

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Answer 2

$IMCaptain Author

Level 1

8 points

Dec 10, 2014 1:45 PM in response to Phil0124

Thanks Phil. I feel much better about my information and security.

Two further questions: my password is very secure so I have no idea how that could be hacked. Is it that easy? Secondly, any idea why one would try and piggyback on my hotspot when there is wifi in the coffeeshop? Just sort of scares me and makes me afraid to try this again.

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Answer 3

Dec 10, 2014 2:11 PM in response to $IMCaptain

$IMCaptain wrote:

Thanks Phil. I feel much better about my information and security.

Two further questions: my password is very secure so I have no idea how that could be hacked. Is it that easy? S

No. Personal hotspot uses WPA2 security for the Wifi password. Which is the strongest Wifi security currently available. So not easy.

$IMCaptain wrote:

Thanks Phil. I feel much better about my information and security.

Secondly, any idea why one would try and piggyback on my hotspot when there is wifi in the coffeeshop?

Either by mistake, which is quite common if they were looking for their own hotspot, or just to see if they could.

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