It’s always lovely to go to a place which provides free Wi-Fi. Most of us also use free Wi-Fi at the airport. Public Wi-Fi is extremely easy to use. In most cases, you simply provide your mobile number or email id and you get an hour or more free!

Sounds great right?

What’s the issue? Everyone does it?

Security & Privacy

This is by far the most important reason that we should never connect to Public Wi-Fi. As soon as you connect to Public Wi-Fi you are on the same network as everyone in the area. This could mean genuine users looking to check email or even hackers just waiting for unsuspecting users.

Man in the Middle

The type of attack is called man-in-the-middle (MITM). The tools for conducting such an attack are surprisingly easy to find online. Once the user is connected to the Public Wi-Fi the hacker can get information about every site visited, passwords used for login and basically see everything that was done on the phone.

See the video below which shows a real-life example.

So this means, if you check your bank balance through your mobile banking website or log in to your mail account to check email, the hacker immediately has access to those passwords.

Now imagine you are the owner of a company and you have several employees who have their email and data configured on their mobiles. As soon as they connect to public networks, all that data is exposed!

Malware & Viruses

While connected to Public Wi-Fi, cybercriminals can easily install apps, plant malware and even viruses without the user knowing. This means the possibilities for data theft are unlimited. This means everything on your mobile devices (passwords, notes, pictures, email etc.) are exposed!

Recently, there have been a lot of cases of theft through malware. Check out my article on SIM Swap Fraud.

What if I have no choice?

There may be a case in which your mobile data just doesn’t work and you have no choice but to connect to Public Wi-Fi. In such cases remember that whatever you look at (be it email, websites etc.) can be intercepted.

A small saving grace here is Whatsapp has adopted end-to-end encryption. This means your chats cannot be read.

What about mobile hotspots?

If you have your own personal hotspot, just see that it has a strong password.

Is there any app that I can install to protect my device?

The best way to protect your device online is to install a VPN (Virtual Private Network). This means that any data being sent or received from your device is coded and would appear as junk to the cybercriminal.

I use ExpressVPN (<- click to check it out). It is extremely simple to use.

Companies should provide their employees with endpoint protection. This is normally provided as part of the antivirus software.

Be Safe.