THE HIDDEN DANGERS OF PUBLIC WIFI

THE HIDDEN DANGERS OF PUBLIC WIFI

                With public Wifi hotspots found everywhere now in coffee shops ,hotels and airports you can find plenty of places to log onto the internet with your mobile device .But this free access doesn’t necessarily come without a price .Along with convenience ,public  Wifi hotspots can also provide an easy way for identity thieves and cybercriminals to track what you are doing online ,and steal your logins or personal information if you are not careful. How so? Wifi uses radio waves. The openness of these signals at public hotspots combined with the right eavesdropping software ,can allow others to take information without your knowledge much like someone overhearing a private conversation in crowded restaurant.

                Don’t assume that a public Wifi network is safe and secure simply because it has password. Remember ,these passwords are shared ,so anyone nearby can easily hop onto the network and see what you are doing. ”Public Wifi is inherently unsecure .Anyone using it ought to do so with the premise that everything you do is visible to a third party stranger with access to that hotspot”. Said Kelvin Clark ,first assistant Monmouth County prosecutor ,an expert in cybercrime .”The chances of you being hacked far exceed the chances of your home being burglarized. This is a big business. The same features that make free Wifi hotspots desirable for consumers make them desirable for hackers  ;namely that it requires no authentication to establish a network connection .This creates an amasing  opportunity for the hacker to get unfettered access to unsecured devices on the same network.

                The biggest threat to free Wifi security is the ability for the hacker to position himself between you and the connection point .So instead of talking directly with the hotspot ,you are sending your information to the hacker who then relays it on .While working on this setup, the hacker has access to every piece of information you are sending out on the internet :important emails ,credit card information and security credentials to your business network .Once  the hacker has that information he can at his leisure access your systems as if he were you.   Hackers can also use an unsecured   Wifi connection to distribute malware. If you allow file sharing across a network, the hacker can easily plant infected software on your computer. Some ingenious hackers have even managed to hack the connection point itself, causing a pop up window to appear during the connection process offering an upgrade to a piece of popular software. Clicking the window installs the malware.