A public hot spot is a wireless computer network used by the public. An organisation, business or even city councils provide free and paid public wireless hotspots you can use to surf the internet on your phone, Ipad, computer or laptop.
Free and fast internet which is readily available is awesome when your sitting around waiting or travelling and many people take advantage of the technology.
However, there is a big risk using public wireless hot spots as you are sharing them with the public.
In its basic form, when you device sends a request it sends packets over the network for the router to intercept and forward on. The problem with this is other computers on the network can pretend to be the router, intercept your packets and see the information being transmitted.
However, there are way around this and things you can do to minimise your security potential when using wireless public hot spots.
Use a VPN
There are plenty of affordable Virtual Private Network Clients out there for as little as $5 a month.
Using a VPN will act like you are the only person on the network, no one else will be able to see what you are transmitting and receiving.
You do have to install software on your device, and use the relevant security credentials your VPN supplier give you such as user name and password.
Once you connect to the wireless hot spot, fire up your VPN software, enter your username and password and your security will greatly be improved!
Look for SSL and HTTPS websites
If you look at the top of your web browser where it says https://www.townsvillenerds.com, you might have noticed the s in http(s), this is a security protocol my web site uses which ensures the traffic between the server you are accessing my site on and your computer is encrypted, unreadable by other devices on or between the networks needed for you to access my website.
Https wasn’t always used by a lot of web sites. You might even notice still looking around many websites still use http and are much less secure.
When using public networks such as wifi hot spots, make sure you use or look for websites to access which have the added (s) in the website address for maximum security.
Accessing eMail through a Mail client like outlook
Email programs like Microsoft Outlook and Mozilla Thunderbird automatically go out and check for new emails for you.
That might be fine when you are at home, but unless your email client is setup with the correct security protocols you may be exposing your emails to hackers and unauthorised devices on public networks.
Email providers usually provide 2 or 3 different types of security protocols for their users to seup up in their mail clients.
They are not usually too hard to setup and you should as good practice always setup the best security settings for your email client and email service provider.
Conclusion
You are always at rick on the internet , even in your own home. There are always people out there looking to take advanatge and using a public free system you are susceptible to all sorts of attacks.
Using these very basic and affordable strategies will protect you from most typical security probelsm using any public or provate network.
