Wi-Fi hotspots in public places, including coffee shops, libraries, airports, hotels, universities, malls, and others, are convenient. This is especially true if you have a smaller data plan and rely on being connected to use your device. Unfortunately, they are often not secure. When you are connected to a Wi-Fi network, and send information through websites or mobile apps, it might be accessed by someone else. Even worse, the network itself may have been purposefully set up to intentionally collect your credit card numbers and other personal and sensitive information.
This segment from NBC’s Today Show proves just how easy it is:
Tips for Using Public Wi-Fi Networks
Use Encrypted Sites
You can protect your information when using wireless hotspots by sending information only to sites that are fully encrypted, and by avoiding using mobile apps that require personal or financial information. Encryption scrambles the information you send over the internet so others can’t access it. Encrypted websites protect the information you send to and from that site only. Secure wireless network encrypts all the information you send using that network. To determine if a website is encrypted, look for https at the start of the web address (the “s” is for secure). Make sure you look for https on every page, not just the first page or the sign in page. If pages don’t have the “s” at the end, your information could be vulnerable.
Mobile Apps
Mobile apps don’t have the visible indicator like https, and researchers have found many mobile apps don’t encrypt information properly. I recommend you don’t use certain types of mobile apps on unsecured Wi-Fi Networks. If you are doing anything that entails sensitive information, such as shopping with a credit card, on-line banking, filing taxes, on such, make sure you are using a secure wireless network or your phone’s data network (such as 3G or 4G).
If you can’t use a secure network and have to do a transaction from an unsecured wireless network, it is better to use the company’s mobile website where you can check for the https at the beginning of the web address rather than the company’s mobile app.
Never Assume a Wi-Fi Hotspot is Secure
If a network doesn’t require a WPA or WPA2 password, it is probably not secure. Most Wi-Fi hotspots don’t encrypt the information you send and are NOT secure. This means that others users on the network can see what you see and what you send. And sadly, there are hacking tools that make hijacking your session and logging in as you easy. These, often free, tools make it easy even for people with limited technical knowledge. These hackers can gain access to your personal information, private documents, contacts, photos, and even log in credentials. These can be used to scam others, gain access to sites that store your financial information and so on.
Protect Your Information When Using Public Wi-Fi
Here are some great tips on how you can protect your information when using Wi-Fi from onguardonline.gov
- When using a hotspot, log in or send personal information only to websites you know are fully encrypted. To be secure, your entire visit to each site should be encrypted – from the time you log in to the site until you log out. If you think you’re logged in to an encrypted site but find yourself on an unencrypted page, log out right away.
- Don’t stay permanently signed in to accounts. When you’ve finished using an account, log out.
- Do not use the same password on different websites. It could give someone who gains access to one of your accounts access to many of your accounts.
- Many web browsers alert users who try to visit fraudulent websites or download malicious programs. Pay attention to these warnings, and keep your browser and security software up-to-date.
- Consider changing the settings on your mobile device so that it doesn’t automatically connect to nearby Wi-Fi. That way, you have more control over when and how your device uses public Wi-Fi.
- If you regularly access online accounts through Wi-Fi hotspots, use a virtual private network (VPN). VPNs encrypt traffic between your computer and the internet, even on unsecured networks. You can get a personal VPN account from a VPN service provider. In addition, some organizations create VPNs to provide secure, remote access for their employees. What’s more, VPN options are available for mobile devices; they can encrypt information you send through mobile apps.
- Some Wi-Fi networks use encryption: WEP and WPA are common, but they might not protect you against all hacking programs. WPA2 is the strongest.
- Installing browser add-ons or plug-ins can help. For example, Force-TLS and HTTPS-Everywhere are free Firefox add-ons that force the browser to use encryption on popular websites that usually aren’t encrypted. They don’t protect you on all websites — look for https in the URL to know a site is secure.
- Take steps to secure your home wireless network.