7 Year Old Girl Hacks Public Wi-Fi Network in 11 Minutes

How a 7-year Betsy Davies hacked a public Wi-Fi network in less than 10 minutes

Millions of people use free Wi-Fi services at the local coffee shop, Airports or designated Wi-Fi hotspots where they work, make a video call or simply shop online. But public Wi-Fi networks have a pretty bad security record  and this is what VPN provider www.hidemyass.com wanted to prove.

An ethical hacking experiment was conducted as part of a new Wi-Fi safety public awareness campaign by VPN provider hidemyass which aims to prove that how easily one can hack into computers which are connected to these free public Wi-Fi hotspots.

The aim of hidemyass was public awareness but what 7 year old Betsy Davies did was more surprising. Betsy Davies from Dulwich in South London hacked a willing participant’s laptop while it was connected to an open Wi-Fi network in less than 10 minutes.

The Experiment

Hidemyass obtained the consent of her family as she is a minor and set up a controlled environment for Betsy to work.  They build a purpose-made open Wi-Fi network which was similar to any of the public Wi-Fi networks found every where.

It took Betsy just 10 minutes and 54 seconds to learn how to set up a rogue access point, frequently used by attackers to activate what is known as a ‘man in the middle’ (MiTm) attack.  After setting up a rogue access point, Betsy managed to eavesdrop on the willing participants (victim’s) internet traffic.

More worry is that the 7 year old primary schooler used the hacking instructions available extensively online through Google Search engine.  If a 7 year old can take less than 11 minutes to hack into a computer through a Public Wi-Fi hotspot, just imagine how easily a hardened cyber criminal can break into any computer that is connected to such public Wi-Fi systems.

Though the idea behind this in-lab experiment was to show how insecure the public Wi-Fi networks are, users should note that this in-lab experiment is being replicated by thousands of cyber criminals in the open.  So just be that extra careful if you are on a public Wi-Fi network.

17 COMMENTS

    • Why would you doubt that? There are very easily to follow guides on hacking if you know the right search words. For example google “how to crack wpa2” and there are several well written step by step guides on how to crack wpa2 and they work I cracked my own wifi network was surprised how easy it was.

    • actually to break a wep key and a dictionary attack todo’s is to find 2 clicks away …
      Everything stays in the way you ask google …

  1. “If a 7 year old can take less than 11 minutes to hack into a computer through a Public Wi-Fi hotspot” – Well she didn’t.

    She conducted a Man In The Middle attack, which is different and should not be compared to taking over another machine. 🙂

  2. Google “script kiddie”. I doubt she has even the shallowest understanding of what actually goes on when the different tools work their magic. The point here is not that she’s seven years old, the crucial point is that WiFi is by definition an unsafe medium. Don’t trust the network, use end-to-end encryption.

  3. THAT’S WHY I DONT TRUST THESE HACKING WEBSITES COZ MOST OF THE ARE BULSHIT. SAFE TO SAY SHE JUST DOUBLECLICKED OPEN A FOLDER OR JUST DOUBLE CLICKED TO RUN A HACKING PROGRAM THEN NEXT, NEXT FINISH

  4. Joli coup de pub. Mais il faut dire que c’est en parti vrai, un réseau public est à risque et personne ne devrait en utiliser un sans un VPN efficace pour chiffre et sécurisé la connexion de bout en bout ! Et HMA reste une référence en terme de service et de garantie ( comparaison simple avec les autres fournisseurs vpn visible ici par exemple : https://www.undernews. fr/comparatifs-vpn ). Il n’y a pas photo, il faut l’avouer, HMA reste le meilleur vpn pour “tout le monde” sans besoins particuliers !

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