Disclosed in some examples are methods, systems, and machine readable mediums which provide a security rating to an STA for a WLAN AP. Prior to connecting to an AP, the STA employs pre-connection logic in the STA to identify likely safe and likely unsafe APs. Once the user connects to an AP, the STA connects first in an untrusted mode. In the untrusted mode, the STA uses the network connectivity provided by the AP to establish a secure connection to a network-based WLAN trust service for post-connection security checks. If the AP passes the post-connection security checks, the STA may allow other applications to access the network connection provided by the AP.