PUBLIC WI-FI: A SECURITY RISK?
Mr. Ashish Bhatnagar, Faculty IT Dept, INMANTEC Institutions
There is no denying that public Wi-Fi hotspots are convenient, especially in a time when many of us are working outside of the office. However, you may be placing your privacy and security at risk if you choose to use one while on the move without the right precautions.
The problem with them is simple: As you do not need authentication to access them, neither do cyber attackers — and this gives them the opportunity to perform what is known as Man-in-The-Middle (MiTM) attacks in order to eavesdrop on your activities and potentially steal your information, as well as manipulate traffic in a way to send you to malicious websites.
Hackers may be able to access the information you are sending through the Wi-Fi hotspot, including but not limited to emails, financial information, and account credentials. Hackers may also set up their own rogue honey pot Wi-Fi points that appear legitimate whilst only being interested in stealing the data of those who connect to it.
It is best not to use a public, unsecured Wi-Fi connection at all. An alternative and far more secure method is always to use a mobile 4G/5G/LTE connection through your own mobile device when possible.
If you need an internet connection for a device other than your Smartphone, an easy way to accomplish this is to set up your mobile device as a mobile Wi-Fi hotspot itself. You can usually find this option in your main scroller menu, or under Wi-Fi settings.
There are other precautions you can take to make a public Wi-Fi hotspot safer — but it’s never devoid of risk.
When you connect to a new Wi-Fi hotspot on Microsoft Windows machines, make sure that you select “Public” when the option appears, as this will enable the operating system to turn off sharing; turn off the Wi-Fi connection when you do not need it, enable firewalls, and try to only visit websites with HTTPS enabled.
In addition, do not use the Wi-Fi hotspot to access anything valuable, such as an online banking service.
