misi
Growing Little Guru
Tips to help you stay safe and secure while using hotspots
With public Wi-Fi hotspots found everywhere now – in coffee shops, hotels and airports – you can find plenty of places to log onto the Internet with your mobile device. But this free access doesn’t necessarily come without a price.
Along with convenience, public Wi-Fi hotspots can also provide an easy way for identity thieves and cybercriminals to track what you’re doing online, and steal your logins or personal information if you’re not careful.
How so? Wi-Fi uses radio waves. The openness of these signals at public hotspots, combined with the right eavesdropping software, can allow others to take information without your knowledge – much like someone overhearing a private conversation in a crowded restaurant.
Don’t assume that a public Wi-Fi network is safe and secure simply because it has a password. Remember, these passwords are shared, so anyone nearby can easily hop onto the network and see what you’re doing.
Tips to Use with Public Wi-Fi
With public Wi-Fi hotspots found everywhere now – in coffee shops, hotels and airports – you can find plenty of places to log onto the Internet with your mobile device. But this free access doesn’t necessarily come without a price.
Along with convenience, public Wi-Fi hotspots can also provide an easy way for identity thieves and cybercriminals to track what you’re doing online, and steal your logins or personal information if you’re not careful.
How so? Wi-Fi uses radio waves. The openness of these signals at public hotspots, combined with the right eavesdropping software, can allow others to take information without your knowledge – much like someone overhearing a private conversation in a crowded restaurant.
Don’t assume that a public Wi-Fi network is safe and secure simply because it has a password. Remember, these passwords are shared, so anyone nearby can easily hop onto the network and see what you’re doing.
Tips to Use with Public Wi-Fi
- Watch what sites you visit. Hold off on visiting any sites that require you to log in with a username and password, like your bank or other financial institutions, social networking sites or webmail. Why offer unscrupulous types information that could haunt you later? Play it safe. Save visiting such sites until you’re on a secure, private network.
- Be aware of your surroundings. As you have your laptop open in a coffee shop, hotel lobby or airport, someone may be secretly observing. Take a few moments to make sure no “shoulder surfers” are watching what you type. To help combat this, you might want to consider purchasing a privacy screen to take along with you, or at least sit with your laptop screen turned away from everyone else.
- Use a VPN (virtual private network). VPNs create a network-within-a-network solution to keep everything you do on public Wi-Fi private. Even on a password-protected network, people can still intercept the signal. VPNs can help make you invisible, allowing you to check sites without worry.
