Oh, the joy of working remotely! The sounds of coffee brewing and the smells of freshly baked scones waft in the background as you snuggle into a booth at your favorite café. Opening your laptop and sipping on that steaming latte, you connect to the Wi-Fi generously supplied by the coffee shop owner. Life is good, right? Uh, not so fast – do you know the risks of using public Wi-Fi?
Before you connect to that Wi-Fi, ensure you know the risky ‘ins and outs’ of these Internet connections.
Here are the Risks of Public Wifi
Man-in-the-Middle Attacks
Does public Wi-Fi require a password? Passwords are helpful, but how often are they changed? And, does the host hand out the password to every customer? Also, public Wi-Fi often do not use encryption, leaving your data unprotected.
Public Wi-Fi can leave you vulnerable to Man-in-the-Middle attacks. An attacker positions itself between your machine and the public servers, grabbing information from your computer as it passes to the Wi-Fi connection. The attacker now has access to all information you are sending to the Internet and can gain access to your employer’s private network.
Fraudulent Wi-Fi
Are you certain you are connecting to a legitimate Wi-Fi server? Some attackers set up their own hot spots, using a name of a nearby business, and trick you into thinking you are connecting to a “real” public Wi-Fi connection. In reality, you are sending your data to the attacker’s servers.
Hacked HTTPS Connections
HTTPS connections offer some security against Man-in-the-Middle attacks. These connections use encryption when sending and receiving data. However, clever hackers can work around these protections. An attacker may collect data over time, obtain the server’s private key, and decrypt all the collected data.
Invisible Malware
While Man-in-the-Middle attacks can access your data moving to and from your machine, other cyber thieves may manipulate the data going out from your connection. A hacker may insert malware (malicious code) into this outgoing data and infect the networks with whom you are communicating.
Do these risks mean you can never use public Wi-Fi? You can use a virtual private network (VPN) connection as protection against the risks of public wifi. A VPN routes your data through its own servers using encryption from end to end, ensuring attackers cannot see your information.
So, before you order that pumpkin latte and open your laptop, be sure you know, how to use a VPN on public wifi and connection to log into your employer’s network.
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