What is a Man in the Middle Attack?

It's a form of electronic eavesdropping. When you connect to an insecure wifi, you risk being victim to a MITM (man in the middle) attack. This happens a lot at airports and other free hotspots.  Information, often sensitive, is passed to another person, but along the way is intercepted by another person.  Let's examine the scenario.

You're at an airport. You're bored to tears waiting a couple of hours for your flight. You discover the airport has a free hotspot so you jump on to check emails, browse the web, etc. Hey it's free, right? You are hooraying because you don't have to spend money. That's where the hurrahs stop!

When you connect to an insecure wireless, anyone in range can record what is going onto the internet. It's called sniffing. If that traffic includes your username and passwords, then you are giving those passwords to someone who has enough time on their hands to sift through a lot of nonsense to get to your passwords. Once they have your password to your email, then they can gain access to your other accounts, like banking which is why I recommend a separate email address just for money matters. (And not a free email account, a paid one!)

You have to be on guard against MITM attacks wherever you are. Even at work. Say someone new comes to your office and sets up a wireless router in the office so they can plug many devices into the network. Even they don't realize they are doing anything wrong. If you see a wireless router in a coworker's office, let your manager know. Probably it was just a mistake, but that mistake can leave others open to account hacks and identity thefts.

Be safe out there and avoid MITM attacks by never connecting to insecure Wifi!