Whether you're traveling, working, or just stopping by your local cafe to check your email, Wi-fi hotspots provide a wonderful service that our society can't seem to live without. Unfortunately, it's not as safe as it once was. Follow these tips to keep your information a little more secure when logging on in public.
Avoid accessing confidential information if you don't have to:
When connected to public Wi-Fi, don’t log on to banking or financial apps. Never use apps or sites that involve personal, sensitive or confidential data. This can even include social media sites (sorry, facebook.)
Someone could be listening:
Don't take this one literally. Someone on your same wi-fi network may be listening to information and streaming it from your device. That information can be stored for later, meaning they don't have to be on the same connection as you in order to read your information. Sometimes it only takes a second for someone to "listen" and get too much data that they can use against you long after you leave the wi-fi hotspot in question.
Always delete your profile when you're done:
Phones and laptops form a habit of saving wi-fi connections for future visits. Yes, this means if you're walking by a cafe you've visited before, your devices can automatically reconnect without you knowing! Once you've finished using a network, make sure you log out and then delete the public wifi network.