Going overseas is great. Going over budget on your phone bill is not.
Free public wifi is the internet god’s little gift to cash-strapped travellers and allows mobile users to easily connect, check and respond to emails, notifications and WhatsApp messages.
And while we usually wouldn’t think twice about saving our data and signing on, a recent experiment by software company Avast has highlighted the dangers in accessing unsecured wifi networks.
For the Mobile World Congress event, the antivirus software company visited Barcelona Airport.
They easily set up several WiFi networks and changed their names to trustworthy names like “Airport_Free_Wifi_AENA” and “Starbucks.”
The company wanted to see exactly how many people would sign on to the free hotspots, without any idea of their legitimacy.
The found that over a few hours, over 2,000 people connected to the networks.
They were able to access two-thirds of the devices that were connected to their unsafe hotspots.
They found that 61.7% of people used the Google search engine or checked their messages on G-mail. They were able to observe who was on Twitter, Facebook, and Spotify. Most importantly, Avast could also see the identity of 63.5% of the devices and users.
So while you’re saving on your data roaming, you could end up giving away your passwords and secure information. Imagine what a hacker could do with that information.
Luckily, president of mobile at Avast, Gagan Singh shared this advice:
“Many individuals recognize that surfing over open Wi-Fi isn’t secure. However, some of these same people aren’t aware that their device might automatically connect to a Wi-Fi network unless they adjust their settings.
“It’s not surprising to see that many opt to connect to free Wi-Fi in order to save money, instead of using data roaming services. When taking this route, people should utilize a VPN service that anonymizes their data while connecting to public hotspots to ensure that their connection is secure.”
