Page 33 - How to be Cyber Safe + Savvy

The Can of Worms That Is Public Wi-Fi
Joining an unprotected public Wi-Fi network potentially opens us
up to really bad stuff. Malicious, copycat networks are rife in places such as airports, hotels, and the food court. If you are checking your email in the lobby, do you connect to “MarriottGuest” or to “GuestAtMarriott”? Once you're on the wrong network, hackers can redirect your data to fake websites — ones that imitate banks' websites, for example — and trick you into divulging sensitive information.
You should use only password-protected public Wi-Fi networks or your phone’s cellular network. If that’s impossible, however, trust only websites that begin with “https” (the "s" is for "secure"), avoid downloading or click- ing on anything remotely weird, and keep personal data off your screen.
A word about Virtual
Private Networks, or VPNs.
A Virtual Private Network is an app or piece of software that sits on your de- vice and encrypts, or otherwise makes unreadable, data going between it and an ISP. It can protect data in an environment such as an unsecure pub- lic Wi-Fi network — or not so much. VPN providers can retain records of your data, and some sell this data to third parties. In addition, using a VPN can reduce the speed at which your phone loads data. VPNs are most commonly used by people who travel a lot for business, with their company taking responsibility for managing and mitigating any security risks. In the hands of security professionals, VPNs can do good work. For the rest of us, the value might not be there.
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