Systems and methods for detecting potentially illegitimate wireless access points

A system for detecting potentially illegitimate wireless access points, the system comprising:

• a detection module, stored in memory, that:
• detects, at a current point in time, an attempt by a computing device to automatically connect to a target wireless access point that resembles a known wireless access point with which the computing device has established a previous connection at a previous point in time;
• detects at least one suspicious discrepancy between the target wireless access point and the known wireless access point by:
• identifying a set of surrounding access points that were located within a certain range of the computing device when the computing device established the previous connection with the known wireless access point at the previous point in time;
• identifying an at least partially different set of surrounding access points that are located within the certain range of the computing device at the current point in time;
• a determination module, stored in memory, that:
• determines a number of the surrounding access points from the at least partially different set that do not match any of the surrounding access points from the set;
• determines that the number of non-matching surrounding access points exceeds a threshold number;
• determines that the target wireless access point is potentially illegitimate based on the number of non-matching surrounding access points exceeding the threshold number;
• at least one physical processor that executes the detection module and the determination module.

A non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising one or more computer-executable instructions that, when executed by at least one processor of a computing device, cause the computing device to:

• detect, at a current point in time, an attempt by the computing device to automatically connect to a target wireless access point that resembles a known wireless access point with which the computing device has established a previous connection at a previous point in time;
• detect at least one suspicious discrepancy between the target wireless access point and the known wireless access point by:
• identifying a set of surrounding access points that were located within a certain range of the computing device when the computing device established the previous connection with the known wireless access point at the previous point in time;
• identifying an at least partially different set of surrounding access points that are located within the certain range of the computing device at the current point in time;
• determine a number of the surrounding access points from the at least partially different set that do not match any of the surrounding access points from the set;
• determine that the number of non-matching surrounding access points exceeds a threshold number;
• determine that the target wireless access point is potentially illegitimate based on the number of non-matching surrounding access points exceeding the threshold number.