2 “Man in the Middle” Attacks
Man in the Middle, or MITM, attacks are a more advanced form of snooping that can get around basic security, and remain an extremely popular Wi-Fi hacking method because 1) It’s relatively easy to hack a lot of mobile devices and 2) users don’t have a clue it’s happening.
A Wi-Fi network requires a router to connect to the internet directly, an access point to send and receive radio wave signals that make up the Wi-Fi network, and a connected user. MITM attacks use software that essentially pretends to be an access point. It will happily send and receive internet data – as long as it gets to spy on everything you are doing.
Most users don’t even realize this is happening, while the MITM makes a copy of everything that’s going on for hackers to peruse later and pick out sensitive information. Another reason to be suspicious of any public Wi-Fi access points that aren’t password protected.