Today I shared my smartphone hotspot with a stranger for like two minutes. When I got back home, none of my devices (which I had also connected to my phone’s data after sharing the hotspot) was able to connect to my wi-fi router, while they did connect with my phone. Restarting the router solved the issue, but it got me wondering: is it possible for someone to hack your phone and infect it with malware through tethering and for that to affect other devices you connect to your phone’s internet? On one hand I’m curious, on the other I’d like to be extra sure that nothing bad might have happened, although I did scan my devices and no malware was detected.
Thx in advance to anyone who’ll reply.
You must log in or register to comment.
Even if it was possible it wouldn’t of had anything to do with your home network… Worst they could do with tethering is downloading torrents or snoop on traffic to other devices that where also connected to the hotspot but not on the device itself.
Public smartphone charging stations are hotspots for threat actors to drop android and iOS malware payloads to be sent when victims connect to one, known as juice jacking. They sell USB condoms for these nowadays
A hotspot isn’t tethering, and, no, it’s not possible as far as I know. Sharing a hotspot gives access to the internet, not your phone.
You answered your own question. Your devices were auto connecting to your phone instead of your router. Turn your mobile hotspot off on your phone if it’s not being used. Make your other devices “forget” the action if they don’t need it. Even if I’m on my gigabit wifi, if I forget that my hotspot is on and dont set it to manual join, then they’ll tend to connect to my hotspot regardless of which connection is superior.
More than possible, but even more unlikely.
Hackers accessing your wifi at home is likely… far more common… and with a decent packet sniffer… a gold mine of data and credentials, possibly MiM attacks etc etc (Big maybe)
Handing over access to the hotspot is generally fine, but it’s really not that much better than handing over your home wifi password to a stranger. But only If someone really knew what they are doing would it be possible to get what they want - and in under 2 mins.
I’m sure someone know how to do it… give me enough cash I will do it….