Public WiFi Still Significant Threat for Online Shopping and Banking

The warnings apparently are still not getting through. In a study by the Russian anti-virus vendor, Kaspersky, 71% of consumers use unsecured public WiFi and 15% use it to do high-risk activities such as online banking or shopping. Further, 42% of the mobile workforce still uses free WiFi to connect to the corporate network. Only 13% of them said they use a VPN to do so. Those are not promising numbers.

In addition to those shocking figures, Kaspersky found that over a quarter of the WiFi hotspots around the world are not secured, use easily cracked encryption, and/or don’t have strong passwords.

• It’s is never a good idea to use public or free WiFi that does not have a password associated with it. However, it’s still risky if the password is not strong. So, when you are at the café and decide you want to do some holiday shopping (or any kind of shopping), keep a few safety tips in mind before you log on.

• If the password does not contain upper and lower case letters, at least one number and one special character, and is not at least eight characters, opt out of connecting. Use the data service on the device or wait till you get somewhere secure.

• Don’t perform tasks such as online banking or any task that requires the transfer of sensitive information while logged into public WiFi. Cyber criminals are known to hang out in public places and intercept the data going across the WiFi.

• Use a VPN to connect when in public places. There are many free or inexpensive VPN software applications that allow you to connect securely. This is especially important if you are logging into work.

• Make sure that all your devices have anti-virus and anti-malware software installed and it is kept up-to-date. When downloading these apps, use the approved app store for your device and do sufficient research on the software to make sure it isn’t malware. Some AV apps have even been found in the app stores that are fake. Be sure the one you choose isn’t by performing due-diligence.

Kaspersky Lab also claimed that many of the most popular tourist destinations in the world have the highest percentage of non-encrypted WiFi hotspots. Included in that list are the United States, Thailand, and France.