There are so many times when you’re out and about and it becomes crucial to connect to Wifi. Maybe you can’t work at home that day and require a secure connection so that you can turn the local coffee shop into your personal WFH space. Or maybe you’re out in an unfamiliar area and need directions to the nearest restaurant or back home. Whatever the reason, there will be a time when you think about connecting to public wifi and may hold yourself back because you wonder whether it’s entirely secure. Is using public wifi safe? We asked a security expert.
Public Wifi Is Safe — But There’s A Caveat
The short answer to this question is: yes, you can use public wifi without worrying that you will immediately be hacked by the stranger sitting at the table beside you. But that doesn’t mean you should go about doing every single thing you’d normally do on your home wifi connection. Taking caution while in public is very important. “With public Wi-Fi being used by people all the time, the chances of a security breach are higher than ever,” says Arvind Patil, country manager at Selectra India. “The feature that allows your mobiles to connect automatically to a public wi-fi is extremely risky as most of you are not even aware of the connection.”
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When it comes to precautions you should take when you’re using someone else’s public wifi connection, there are a few big ones to keep in mind. Basically: don’t do anything that exposes personal information that can be used to compromise your privacy and security.
“So, the first precaution is to disable the automatic connection option in your phone settings,” Patil says.
You don’t want your device to automatically connect to a wifi source the minute you walk into an establishment — you want to have control over when you use public wifi. To disable this feature go to Settings — Wifi — tap the wifi network for which you want to turn off auto-join — toggle auto-join off. Now repeat this for all of the networks that you want to turn off.
Now let’s say you are settling in at the coffee shop and have connected to their public wifi. A little bit of prep work at home or in a place where you had a secure connection is a good idea so that you don’t have to type in passwords while you’re out — as is avoiding paying the electric bill from Starbucks.
“The next thing never to do on public Wi-Fi is indulging in financial transactions,” Patil says. “In all such activities, middlemen can intercept your transactions and gain access to your confidential data. This is a huge threat to all users. Avoid exposing your login credentials on any site. Make sure you conduct such log-in procedures on a secure Wi-Fi connection. Never on public Wi-fi.”
Other major risk areas to avoid are online shopping sites, business emails, accounting software, and customer relationship data, according to Patil. “If possible, restrict the use of your personal email as well,” Patil says. “What else is not a good idea? Sharing files, especially if they contain sensitive data and forgetting about the passers-by. You are in public and anyone can steal your data or keep a record of your sites. For more safety, always upgrade your security settings.”
The don’t’s of public wifi usage are far lengthier than the do’s — but limiting the things you do from an insecure connection will keep you and your data safer.
