clipped from www.anonymizer.com

What are Evil Twins?

Evil twins are the wireless version of the phishing scam. An attacker fools wireless users into connecting a laptop or PDA (Palm Pilot) to a tainted hotspot by posing as a legitimate provider. Once you connect to the wireless network, the evil twins can access and steal your login information, in addition to confidential information which can potential lead to identity theft.

Evil twins are "the new frontier" in ID theft, warns Ken Silva, chief security officer at Verisign Inc., a Mountain View, CA company that provides Internet-security services. Hackers in the past have eavesdropped when consumers use legitimate Wi-Fi services in public places. But consumers have been able to use encrypted connections and other techniques for safeguarding their data. (Wall Street Journal) Whereas, in this instance what seems like an encrypted connection may actually be a rogue site for the hackers.