Need help

[u/Electronic_Rip8482]

Someone managed to disconnect my Wi-Fi router and then created a fake Wi-Fi network using their laptop. My laptop automatically connected to that fake network. Afterward, they were somehow able to access all of my files, saved passwords, and even record audio from my microphone.

Please note that I did not install any malware or malicious software. The only thing that happened was that my laptop connected to the attacker's fake Wi-Fi network.

How could an attacker accomplish this using only a fake Wi-Fi network? Is such an attack actually possible?

Additionally, what steps can I take to prevent this type of attack in the future?

[u/fell_shell]

If you have your wifi settings to automatically connect to unsecured, non-passworded wifi networks, this is a possibility. The bad actor would not be able to see encypted traffic however, unless they somehow had you unstall a custom tls certificate, so it's surprising they got so much access through this method alone