Today public Wi-Fi is available for free at most coffee shops, hotel lounges, libraries, and oddly enough, Laundromats. People frequently connect to the Internet in these public places without thinking twice. If you’ve taken the proper precautions, you can protect your private, sensitive information.
Remember that those free Wi-Fi hotspots generally do not use encryption, allowing anyone to see your Internet traffic. Additionally, free online hacking tools have made it easy to capture the data you send electronically. So never send bank passwords, credit card numbers, confidential email, or other sensitive data over public Wi-Fi connections.
You might not be completely protected if:
You get a password to access Wi-Fi at your hotel
If you are required to use a password, Wi-Fi traffic is encrypted. This prevents eavesdropping, but it may not stop other guests connected to the same hotspot from stealing your data.
You are accessing a website that uses “https” in its URL
If a website address has “https” instead of “http,” the traffic is encrypted using SSL. However, some websites use “https” for the login page only. The other pages may not be encrypted.
While these security concerns are not new, coffee shops and hotel lounges do not seem to be doing more to protect you. By making a tradeoff between ease of use and security, they offer a straightforward service and leave the security responsibilities to you.
If you absolutely have to send sensitive data over public Wi-Fi, use VPN (Virtual Private Network) to protect your network traffic. VPN ensures that all of your communication is encrypted. Any UW faculty, student or staff with an active UW NetID is eligible to use WiscVPN for free. DoIT provides this service for a secure method of accessing University resources.
Please email DoIT.Security@doit.wisc.edu if you have any questions regarding this topic.
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