When you check in to your hotel, spend the afternoon at your local coffee shop, or even wait for your car to get serviced, one of the first things you might do before checking emails and scrolling Instagram is to log on to the free Wi-Fi.
While it’s convenient, and many times faster than our phone service, it can also be dangerous. Scammers often target public Wi-Fi with pop-ups requesting to install a foreign program before connecting to the network. This is known as data stealing malware.
Here are some tips for using public Wi-Fi:
- Ask the business you are visiting the exact name of the network
- Make sure you close your previously used secure apps and websites before logging in to public Wi-Fi
- Don’t ever use public Wi-Fi to do online banking
- Don’t visit websites where you must enter a username/password while using public Wi-Fi
- Don’t allow your device to automatically connect to public Wi-Fi