As soon as we see a board of free wi-fi in the waiting lounge of the airport, we get tempted to use it.
This happens often with us, be it a railway station, a restaurant or any public place where this facility is available.
But friends, always remember that the use of public wi-fi means – to keep oneself between vultures and wolves.
Hackers are just waiting for you.
But this does not mean that you will have to give up public Wi-Fi altogether. There are many ways to protect yourself and your sensitive data when using free public Wifi. Today we will talk about those same methods.
Today we will talk about how hackers use public Wi-Fi to enter your account, and
We will also understand how to take our flight outside the radar of hackers and browse safely.
Be it airport, railway platform, restaurant or any public Wifi, you can enjoy it to the fullest.
Public Wifi networks should never be considered secure.
There are many risks associated with it. Even if the network is a secured public wifi hotspot whose password you have taken from the organization’s staff, we should not be too care free as the password given to us will be given to many other people whose identity and intention is not known.
It can become more risky if there is an open Wifi setting, which gives admin access of router to anyone. There are many ways for cyber criminals in this type of system by which it can monitor the screen of users who connect to public Wifi without being careful, even if they only want to browse the web.
This is known as “man-in-middle” attack.
‘Man-in-the-middle’
Attacks that typically take place because of the poor security of public WiFi, are called ‘man-in-the-middle’. This means that there is an attacker between the server and you that you cannot understand.
This allows the attacker to capture all your traffic, which they can use to steal your personal information.
The most important in this is your net banking and card details.
And can even manipulate your data package to install malware or spyware on your device.
This work can be easily done using tools like Wireshark.
Malware Distribution
Another major danger on Public Wifi is the attackers injecting malware into your device.
The attackers not only do snooping (peep-peeping) on your screen with help of this malware, but there is an even greater danger. This is just the tip of iceberg. When you are sending information from your device to a server, before reaching the destination, your information is being manipulated by attackers through a malicious code.
Normally, there is data encryption on secure websites, which is not easy for the attackers to crack, but if before accessing the main server, attackers have also bypassed the encryption by any malware, then your difficulties may increase.
Dangerous WiFi Hotspots
Many times you go to cafe or restaurant, you find free Wifi and get connected, but you do not know whether it is actually provided by that cafe or an attacker is framing you by creating a fake named hotspot. To be safe, you can confirm from a cafe staff that if wifi facility is provided by them only. But this will also not be a foolproof way because maybe even that employee does not have the right information in this regard and he himself is using the same fake network.
In such a situation, the attacker has many options to cheat with you.
He can show you malicious Ads,
He can take you to a clone of the website you want to visit and grab your information.
Taking care of security, you visit websites with https, but you will not know when you have been redirected to the http clone of same website.
Data is secured by encryption on https websites, but attackers can also use fake SSL certificate. In such a situation your browser will also give you an alert message and if without reading you click OK, then you are compromising with security.
Friends, this information is not meant to scare you in any way, but the purpose of it is that you can remain alert.
You can control your risk by keeping some precautions.
If you want to be safe even while using public Wifi, then keep in mind
Your effort should be to avoid any kind of payment transaction through public Wifi.
Avoid accessing your social media account and email while on public Wifi.
Do not click on websites that do not have SSL (https), at all.
Double check the name of Wifi before connecting. For example, you are in a cafe ‘HAM SA’ and if the name of Wifi is ‘HAN SA’ there, be careful.
Do not connect the device on public Wifi, in which you have your sensitive information like bank account details, card details.
Keep Firewall enabled and the anti-virus updated.
Turn off the auto connect features of your device. Such as Bluetooth, filesharing, AirDrop, printersharing etc.
Do not leave your devices open in public place, nor give in the stubbornness of any unknown.
USE of VPN – Virtual Private Network acts as a safe tunnel for you. Any data traffic transmit from your device is encrypted in this VPN so that no attacker is able to decode it.
