DANGERS OF PUBLIC WIFI.

[Bitco55]

I once heard a story from a casino moderator on a telegram group. Apparently a user complained about not receiving his withdrawal. After investigation, they discovered that the user had connected to a public hotspot. A compromised public hotspot, that is, and a malware bot automatically changed the withdrawal address. The user thought the casino had scammed him, but the casino had evidence of sending the money to the exact address the user entered.

Public WiFi is something we use casually, at our uni libraries, working space, cafes, even at our neighbour's home. But the thing is, it is one of the most silent dangers in crypto gambling. Hackers are getting creative everyday . They don't need your password or seed phrase to take all your funds. They just need to watch your device's traffic long enough.
After listening to the casino moderator's story, I never made any transactions on public WiFi without a VPN. Honestly it way better to avoid it entirely. If it's urgent, turn on mobile data. The security difference is too much. Mobile networks are almost impossible to intecept, unlike public WiFi, where anyone can connect to and begin scanning devices. Where transactions move fast and  is often, using public WiFi is like an open invitation for scammers. You may be lucky, but it usually only takes one attempt to lose everything.

[Dave1]

I think we have a lot of discussion about using public WIFI as it is really dangerous for us crypto enthusiast as there are a lot of scammers out there who are really with their equipment to listen anything that they can see in public and if so happens you used it, for sure you are going to be trapped.

Not just public WIFI, those public phone charger too as there are some attacks on is like a juicer or something that can get into your phone will you are charging it publicly and you think that you are safe. So everything that is out there in the public, we should really be very careful specially if we have some kind of crypto wallet in our phones.

[Oshosondy]

I once heard a story from a casino moderator on a telegram group. Apparently a user complained about not receiving his withdrawal. After investigation, they discovered that the user had connected to a public hotspot. A compromised public hotspot, that is, and a malware bot automatically changed the withdrawal address. The user thought the casino had scammed him, but the casino had evidence of sending the money to the exact address the user entered.

I do not believe this or what that happened is so different from the angle that you people saw it from. Public WiFi disadvantage is that anything you are using it to do is not private but public, the people that provide you the public WiFi will easily know what you are doing online on your device. In short the person will be able to know the websites that you are visiting. It will not affect the security of your device but it will affect your privacy.

[Dunamisx]

Hack cases of public wifi related issues had made it more a thing of interest that people should be discouraged from the use of public wifi, if you have your wallet, then ensure that its not connected to the same device in which you used for connection into public wifi if you don't want to risk being hacked, also, the more need for us to use an air gapped device for wallet.

[coinrifft]

He could be a victim of what cyber experts called, Evil Twin Attack: What it is, How to Detect & Prevent it.

Evil twin attacks are a type of Man in the Middle (MitM) attack in which a fake Wi-Fi network is set up to steal information or further infiltrate a connecting device.

This is often done in public settings where people are most likely to look for or connect to freely available Wi-Fi. This can be in airports, cafes, large public parks, etc., but hackers can really leverage this attack anywhere, mainly because the fake Wi-Fi can be easily set up and deployed.

And there is one case in Australia already: Man charged over creation of ‘evil twin’ free WiFi networks to access personal data.

So it's no longer safe for everyone to connect to a supposedly public Wifi. It's better to have your phone on a data subscription so anytime you want to connect without the Wifi we enjoy at home, you can simply tap and used your own private data so that no one can attack you remotely.

[Agbe]

Op your story does not make sense to me. And it is difficult for me to believe that the Public WiFi operator manipulated the withdrawal address from his end. That story is not clear. The only disadvantage I can pinpoint out from public wifi for gamblers is if there more gamblers using it to gamble in one casino, the casino will see them as one account and might banned them. But what you are saying is that, they can see what I am doing in my device and have control or override my system?

[georgino22222]

You're absolutely right about the dangers. One critical risk that cannot be overstated is password theft. On public WiFi networks, attackers using packet sniffing tools can intercept unencrypted traffic and steal your login credentials for exchanges, email accounts, and wallets. Even worse, they can capture cookies and session tokens, giving them immediate access to your accounts without needing your password.

The Man-in-the-Middle (MITM) attacks mentioned are particularly dangerous for crypto because once someone gains access to your exchange or wallet account, they can drain your funds instantly. Always use a VPN if you must use public WiFi, but the safest option remains using only mobile data or trusted networks for any financial transactions.

[sleepfirefly]

I once heard a story from a casino moderator on a telegram group. Apparently a user complained about not receiving his withdrawal. After investigation, they discovered that the user had connected to a public hotspot. A compromised public hotspot, that is, and a malware bot automatically changed the withdrawal address. The user thought the casino had scammed him, but the casino had evidence of sending the money to the exact address the user entered.

I do not believe this or what that happened is so different from the angle that you people saw it from. Public WiFi disadvantage is that anything you are using it to do is not private but public, the people that provide you the public WiFi will easily know what you are doing online on your device. In short the person will be able to know the websites that you are visiting. It will not affect the security of your device but it will affect your privacy.

connecting to a public wifi definitely compromises privacy and security

when you connect to a public wifi there might be a server that pops up asking you to allow connection or install something and without thinking much of it, you agree

the “public wifi” you are connecting to might not actually be legitimate from the start serving you fake login pages and once they’re in your device a malware can get installed that may hijack your clipboard

clipboard hijack is similar to keylogging, it’s possible the person OP’s talking about copied and pasted his address but did not check each character allowing for the attackers to change some details subtly