New Delhi: There are several obvious advantages to using public Wi-Fi. Consider this – you are at a railway station and your mobile data keeps dipping to 3G, let alone offer decent 4G speeds. Connecting to the free railway station Wi-Fi immediately fixes the problem. Public Wi-Fi also comes in handy when your mobile data well has run dry. But since public Wi-Fi is open to everyone, there are a few things you’d want to ensure before connecting to protect your data and identity.

Turn off automatic connection

Connecting automatically to Wi-Fi networks when they become available is highly convenient and can help you save data, but from a security point of view, it’s dangerous. Bad actors may be able to gain access to sensitive information on a public Wi-Fi. You can stay safe by navigating to your device’s Wi-Fi settings and turning off the option that lets you connect automatically to open networks.

Only connect to trusty networks

Go out and about in a busy area and you’ll see several open Wi-Fi networks on your available networks list. It’s always tempting to find a strong free network to connect to, because who doesn’t love free internet? But doing so can potentially expose your data to hackers. Hackers may set tempting names for hotspots such as “Free Wi-Fi” or may also imitate names of legitimate services, so be careful when picking a network to connect to.

Turn off sharing

Sharing files and folders can be great on your office Wi-Fi, helping you work with colleagues collaboratively, but doing the same over public Wi-Fi is dangerous. Keeping sharing on a public Wi-Fi means shared folders can be viewed by anyone else on your network. You’d want to turn off file sharing before logging into a public network. If you are using a Windows PC, you’ll see the option for it right when you connect to a new network.

Avoid signing into online banking sites

After you’ve taken the aforementioned precautions, the next step to stay safe is to avoid signing into accounts that contain personal information like online banking and social media. Even though a website may be reputable, the personal information on that site could be accessible to hackers on an open Wi-Fi.

Use a VPN

Using a VPN is one of the most effective yet simplest ways of keeping your information safe when on a public Wi-Fi network. A VPN reroutes your data through a secure encrypted network. You can find VPN apps across all platforms, be it Android, iOS, Windows, or macOS.

Always be on the latest security update across your devices

Security updates may not seem that tempting considering they do not introduce new features, but they are crucial for your device’s security. Take the WannaCry ransomware attack for example which all started due to a delayed Windows update. It went on to affect thousands of computers. Had the update rolled out on time and users updated immediately, WannaCry wouldn’t even have been a thing.

Have a mixture of passwords

Using the same password for everything is highly convenient for you, but it’s also highly convenient for hackers. If a bad actor on the same public Wi-Fi as you obtains one of your passwords it means that they immediately gain access to all your other accounts. It reportedly takes just 10 minutes to crack a six-character all-lowercase password that doesn’t include numbers or special characters.

Agencies

Agencies