Use open wifi hotspot risky

Tech November 18, 2015 14:15

- A wifi hotspot for many people is an oasis in the desert. Especially abroad can even check the mail and send a appje to the home front are convenient. But there is a great danger that can stick to using this wifi points: malicious, they childishly simple hijack and intercept important data. That proved once again during a live demonstration of such a hack on Tuesday, Janne Pirttilahti of security firm F-Secure.

by Pirttilahti shows two ways that attackers can obtain. The first one is quite simple: with a low-priced WiFi transmitter, it is possible to keep an eye on all the traffic on an open network. This transmitter can literally be made from a USB wifi stick of roughly a decade. " The cheaper the better, " Pirttilahti suggested yet. " The more expensive ones are better protected and you can lower yourself to change. " Uncoded-data traffic, for example, a search query via Bing, can be viewed through this simple method. The security expert demonstrated this by searching on an Android tablet at photos of cars. These appeared then also directly on the laptop that was used to eavesdrop on data traffic. Man-in-the-middle More dangerous still are the so-called man-in-the-middle attacks. Here a personal Wi-Fi network created with the same name and attributes as another public network. The opportunity then exists that people become connected this fake network, but to ensure that all users of the original hotspot also end up on the nepnetwerk, an attack may be underway. Pirttilahti demonstrates this by this flood of data, which the hotspot itself reset. However, the fake body still online and thus all connected devices automatically jump to this about. " If I have control over the network, I can also manipulate things. I can send people to their own sites, such as a fake Gmail. Then fill them in on them login credentials, after which I also have, " explains the expert from. Solution Fortunately, consumers can defend themselves in a rather simple manner against these dangers. " The simplest way is to use a VPN, or Virtual Private Network, " argues Pirttilahti. " then make a sort of tunnel data to your destination that is fully encrypted. All your data is protected with this. " There are various VPN services, such as F-Secure's own Freedome, but this must be paid monthly.