WiFi world wide a Big Security Issue |
Posted: June 25, 2014 |
Do you access your various financial or social media accounts, or other private accounts such as e-mails with your doctor, at public computer stations? At the coffee house or hotel, for instance? Boy, are you ever setting yourself up for cybercrime including identity theft. What usually happens is that the criminals establish Wi-Fi hotspots that trick people into thinking they are legitimate public Wi-Fi locations—people take the bait and log on. The crooks can then watch your communications through their Wi-Fi access points, and steal your personal information like passwords and credit card numbers. A computerweekly.com report warns that anything you send via a public Wi-Fi may potentially fall into the hands of fraudsters. One of the scams is that a criminal will get in the middle of a transaction between a user and a website, then intercept in tricky ways to steal the user’s data. A Few Experiments
This weakness in knowledge in the user, and in the security of public Wi-Fi, needs to be addressed by—obviously—the user and the providers of public Wi-Fis, plus business organizations that rely on public Wi-Fis. Another survey in the same article found that 34 percent of PC users said that they do not take special precautions to safeguard their online interactions when using public Wi-Fi. Just 13 percent do take the time to inspect encryption prior to making a connection to a particular point. So how can you protect yourself when using public Wi-Fi?
Robert Siciliano is an Identity Theft Expert to Hotspot Shield VPN. He is the author of 99 Things You Wish You Knew Before Your Identity Was Stolen See him discussing internet and wireless security on Good Morning America. Disclosures.
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