Hello everyone,
I am new to this having an account on this forum but I have been reading and getting information from it for a long time.
This thread is a bit in depth but I am going to try and make it as simple as possible.
I live in the Philadelphia area and around here Comcast has a monopoly (basically) on all fiber internet (especially if you want top tier speeds). I am a Comcast customer. Recently I have been staying at my girlfriends place.. a lot. She however does not have internet at her home, she relies on her smartphone for basically everything. My problem is I need to use WiFi for work etc.
Comcast offers what are called "xfinitywifi hotspots" almost everywhere. I can get much more in depth on that particular subject but I won't. The only thing I will say is if you are a Comcast customer they inject your modem with packets to hijack it and turn it into a hotspot.
I have been using their hotspots a lot lately. For awhile as long as my password was stored from my place in my WiFi settings I was able to pick up the hotspots with no issue. Granted these hotspots aren't secure but I use a VPN and enable WPA encryption plus a few other things while using it. This all changed last week. While at my own place Comcast must have injected some kind of code into my MacBook due to the fact that when I was at my gf's place a small browser box popped up and prompted me for my login and password. I did not want to enter my login and password on an open WiFi network but then I noticed I was on a different WPA which was encrypted so I did. It brought me to this site and made me download this "profile" to continue using their hotspot services.
----> http://wifi.xfinity.com/#security
In my system preferences it created a profile which gave me more protection. I think.
This is all a bit confusing to me. But paying another $100 per month to have ethernet is not something I really want to do. Can someone please take a look at this post; read it, and tell me if by using these hotspots I am opening myself up to being compromised. For example am I open to MITM attacks while using them etc. I don't know this is what I am asking the experts.
*The reason I needed to create a new post is because this profile Comcast/Xfinity created is very new. The download is called XFINITY_WiFi.pkg*
Please help if you can.
Thanks,
Mamba
I am new to this having an account on this forum but I have been reading and getting information from it for a long time.
This thread is a bit in depth but I am going to try and make it as simple as possible.
I live in the Philadelphia area and around here Comcast has a monopoly (basically) on all fiber internet (especially if you want top tier speeds). I am a Comcast customer. Recently I have been staying at my girlfriends place.. a lot. She however does not have internet at her home, she relies on her smartphone for basically everything. My problem is I need to use WiFi for work etc.
Comcast offers what are called "xfinitywifi hotspots" almost everywhere. I can get much more in depth on that particular subject but I won't. The only thing I will say is if you are a Comcast customer they inject your modem with packets to hijack it and turn it into a hotspot.
I have been using their hotspots a lot lately. For awhile as long as my password was stored from my place in my WiFi settings I was able to pick up the hotspots with no issue. Granted these hotspots aren't secure but I use a VPN and enable WPA encryption plus a few other things while using it. This all changed last week. While at my own place Comcast must have injected some kind of code into my MacBook due to the fact that when I was at my gf's place a small browser box popped up and prompted me for my login and password. I did not want to enter my login and password on an open WiFi network but then I noticed I was on a different WPA which was encrypted so I did. It brought me to this site and made me download this "profile" to continue using their hotspot services.
----> http://wifi.xfinity.com/#security
In my system preferences it created a profile which gave me more protection. I think.
This is all a bit confusing to me. But paying another $100 per month to have ethernet is not something I really want to do. Can someone please take a look at this post; read it, and tell me if by using these hotspots I am opening myself up to being compromised. For example am I open to MITM attacks while using them etc. I don't know this is what I am asking the experts.
*The reason I needed to create a new post is because this profile Comcast/Xfinity created is very new. The download is called XFINITY_WiFi.pkg*
Please help if you can.
Thanks,
Mamba