As WiFi access become more widely available at major airports and other public locations, more and more travelers are wondering more about how secure these hotspots really are.

To answer that security question quickly, these hotspots are not really secured because they operate over radio frequencies (which is not too complicated to hack.) There are, however, simple steps (just 3 easy steps) that you and me can take to be sure that we can be more secure surfing the Internet using these public hotspot WiFi networks.

1. Protecting your computer like you would anywhere else – Remember to keep your antivirus and firewall software on while on any public WiFi networks. Computer virus still function the same anywhere weather on a local network or airport WiFi networks.

2. Protecting your data while on these WiFi hotspots – Any hackers can easily intercept your email or even worst your email log in and password when you are checking your email on these network. To be sure that you are safe from these low lives, you should use a secure sockets layer (SSL) email service. There are plenty of these secure email service available just google “SSL email service.” While on these secure service you can always check to see that your information is encrypted by locating the padlock image on the bottom right of your browser or check the site URL for “https:”.

3. Be sure to always check the URL – This sounds very simple but many people just don’t look at the URL. Hackers know this fact very well and after all it is not too hard for anyone to setup a page that happens to look just like your bank log in page. This trick can easily be foil if you just check the URL and make sure it is the domain, for example, of your bank. Remember the domain names of major companies and businesses are nearly impossible to register now a day.

The widespread increase availability of public WiFi hotspots at airports is a good thing for more and more of us that rely on the ability to use the web on the go. However, with this gain in access more steps like the one I suggested above have to be taken to make sure you and your data are secured at these public access.

Enjoy your WiFi!

  • Share/Bookmark

RSS feed for comments on this post · TrackBack URI

Share your comment for this AirportWiFiGuide.com post

Top WiFi airports / WiFi posts rated by our users