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Welcome To
The Better Systems Podcast!
 
May 8, 2010 Show Notes (PodcastIT014):
"Am I safe using my local coffee shop's Wi-Fi
Hotspot?"
In short, the answer is no. Your local coffee house has a Wi-Fi
Hotspot as a
value added service that they provide. They want you to have your
coffee and hang around, surfing the internet, checking your email,
and maybe open up a chat with your friend to get them to meet you
there. While you are waiting for your friend to show up, you may
check your bank account, check to see if your favorite item is on
sale on eBay, and to do the things that you would normally do at
home while you are on the internet. It is made to be convenient to
you and is a great tool to have customers come in repeatedly.
However, what you may not know is that there could be a local coffee
drinker
sitting there running a simple program that allows them to record
your keystrokes. So, while you are typing in the internet
location of your bank, and then inputting your username and
password, they are kicking back, sipping their coffee, knowing that
the next one is on you.
So what should you look for when using this convenience while taking
part in your morning espresso? First, look to see if you have to
type in any code to access the Wi-Fi network. If not, then
everything you type on your computer is open access, meaning that
nothing is secure. Your keystrokes can be literally be collected
like the scenario above. Even if you have your bank bookmarked and
you click on it instead of typing in the internet address, the
website that hosts your bank is still easily determined as it has
it's own address that can be stored and collected by specialized
software. When connecting to the internet and you notice that you
are not asked for a security password, then stay away from any
websites where you have any financial and personal information that
you don't want compromised. You just never know who is watching your
every move.
Second, make sure that you have your Firewall activated. Though not
100%, it will make it harder for a potential hacker to get inside
your computer. After all, when you are on a network, such as a open
Wi-Fi network, you can see all the computers that are connected. All
one would have to do is to open up the network program to see them.
For any of the computers that do not have Firewall enabled, all you
have to do is click on them to access their drive. They may not even
notice that you are able to snoop in their computer and copy files
over to your computer, or that you can send them a malware program
by copying from your computer to theirs. If your firewall is not
enabled, don't even go to a Wi-Fi hotspot as you are just asking for
trouble.
Also, if you do surf the internet at these locations, pay close
attention to the
websites that you are visiting, if you suddenly see misspellings,
the Wi-Fi router may actually be routing the websites to another
computer inside the coffee shop and is hosting websites to look like
legitimate websites. Since the routers used in these places have
security turned off, it would be easy to change the settings to
point all web traffic to a local computer, or to a remote one that
was set up just for phishing.
Finally, look for the h t t p s if you must log into your bank. This
is located
right in front of your bank's URL. For example: https://www.mybank.com.
This shows that you are connected securely to your bank through a
secure and encrypted channel that would be nearly impossible to
break. However, remember that if the Wi-Fi Hotspot does not ask you
a security question, you will be transmitting your username and
password in the clear!
Better Systems Tech Tips: Most importantly, use your brain. Look
around your environment first to see if surfing the internet is
really a smart thing to do at the time. If not, read a book, or
better yet, go elsewhere. You'll be glad you did!
Check Out Our Other Show Notes!
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