Wi-Fi access is becoming as ubiquitous as the airwaves it travels through: The bank HSBC began rolling out free Wi-Fi to its customers in the U.K. This week, New York City recently announced plans to transform old payphones into touchscreen Wi-Fi hotspots, and Internet service providers (ISPs) are building wireless hotspots to offer their customers more data on the go.
According to Business Times, consumers juggle more data-sapping devices on the go, they're trying to avoid getting that warning from their wireless Internet carriers by using free public Wi-Fi at their peril.
Free Wi-Fi becomes more popular worldwide, it can make data more susceptible to hackers lurking in the coffee shop, or in the bank, or along the sidewalk.
Experts warn that logging in to unsecure networks can give hackers all they need to steal your identity or your savings.
"As people find that connectivity is more common, they assume that it is secure," Wil Rockall, an Internet security specialist, told the BBC. "Once they've got your details, they can clear out your account.”
Hackers can use free administrative tools to sniff out your browsing habits at free Wi-Fi hotspots, unless its encrypted. Private WiFi
If you've ever worked at a large company or tried to navigate the shady world of file-sharing, you may have heard of Virtual Private Networks, or VPNs.
Edward Snowden’s revelations about the NSA secretly collecting data on the American public, interest in VPNs is up; services that encrypt, or protect, your data as it travels from a server to your device, and then decrypting it at the other end.
Hackers can capture truckloads of personal information by scanning the bits of data that go through a public Wi-Fi hotspot, a process known as sniffing.
If they are a little more enterprising, they can set up their own network, stealing the bandwidth from public Wi-Fi, and directing users to their own network, a “rogue hotspot.”
But setting up a VPN is no easy task, certainly not as easy as downloading an app or connecting to a Wi-Fi network. Lawson’s company sells a VPN called Private WiFi, for everybody else.
“We developed it to be simple enough for normal people to use it. It decides whether it needs to be activated or not,” Lawson said. “It should be as easy as an antivirus.”
Using a VPN can protect your personal information, even if you’re logging into a Wi-Fi hotspot set up by a hacker looking for your credit card information as you shop online.
No comments:
Post a Comment