Internet Crime In Chiang Mai? Just A Thought!

[tchk]

Early this year I discovered that three debits were made in late December on my Mastercard account totalling about US$ 1600. They looked like purchases made at a camera store in Japan. The classical case of theft of credit card data, and you think this never happens to you! Since I have never been to Japan and my card had never left my possession, I began to wonder if my data had been intercepted during an Internet connection. What sprung to the eye was the purchase of wifi time at the departure lounge of Chiang Mai International Airport on 20 December. I had a lot of extra time on that day because all planes were full and Thai could not place me on an earlier flight than originally planned. When I tried to log into the wireless system I noticed that at least two hotspots were within range of the Thai lounge and that several wireless providers were offering their services. I was too lazy to shut down my Mac, walk over to the coffee shop and buy a rubble card, so I entered my MC data into the fields, only a little bit suprised that they even wanted to know the security code on the back of my card, and that for a sum of just 200 baht! I am not sure what happened after that, but I could never log onto the hotspot because I received no login or password and thought my payment didn't go through. Nevertheless, a debit of about that sum was made as I found out later.

By some luck I could inform the bank within a day or two after the debit in Japan was made, and it looks like everything will be fine. I was expecting trouble because it was only a debit card.

A few days ago I found the link to an article "Evil Twin hotspots: the latest security threat to web users..." at http://www.cranfield.ac.uk/university/pres...05/14012005.cfm . It could explain what can happen when criminals jam a wifi signal with a stronger base station. I cannot say this is what happened to me in Chiang Mai - therefore the 3 question marks. Hovewer, I wouldn't be suprised if the technology were around; Chiang Mai University had a web site up and running in 1995 when HTML was in its earliest version and things were just starting up. I would also say that if I were to use such a device I would not go to a huge airport with tight security but perhaps one where I can put a pickup truck or something near the departure lounge without raising suspicions. But as I said, "Just a thought"

It could be that my thoughts are unfounded, but I have taken the warning not to transmit bank data over a wireless connection. The trouble is that it seems hard to find an Internet Café allowing me to you to plug directly into the LAN. Any hints are appreciated.

[monty]

Wifi networks can be dangerous indeed.

But you should be able to use wifi internet reasonably secure if you know what to look for!

Have a firewall installed (zone alarm, not the windowsXP one)

Decent antivirus / anti spam

Only use credit card info on known reputable websites, and make sure the page uses ssl (recognizable by the yellow padlock in Explorer or the yellow address bar in Firefox/Mozilla)

This won't help with rogue hotspots though! It's pretty easy to set one up if you know Linux. With the freeware around (NoCat springs to mind) it's easy to redirect any browser on the wifi network to a page asking for credit cards etc...!

I've seen 5 watt 802.11 signal boosters around in Pantip, which, combined with a high gain antenna, would indeed overpower any legit hotspot (at 30 milliwatt) in a pretty big area...

Just be carefull out there!!!

[timpatco]

Here is a bit of advice, never, ever use a credit/debit card in LOS

[Dancali]

I was in the San Diego airport one time trying to find (and pay) for the Starbucks mobil hotspot. The only thing I could find was some third party no-name service. They were probably ok, but anybody could set up such a website which steals your credit card info.