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Unprotected WiFi Hook-Ups in action at Collision

Adam Pilkey

28.04.16 1 min. read

Collision is coming to a close today, and what a week it’s been.

F-Secure’s Chief Research Officer Mikko Hyppönen was there earlier in the week, and gave a compelling talk on the evolution of cyber crime. He also gave a quick post-talk interview, so check out this Quickfire article to learn who Mikko thinks deserves a slap in the face.

F-Secure also ran a basic Wi-Fi experiment at Collision*, similar to ones conducted in 2014 and 2015.

While the experiment conducted at Collision had a smaller scope than our previous investigations, it does prove that people are still pretty promiscuous when it comes to connecting to public Wi-Fi hotspots without the proper protection, such as a VPN.

In the first two days of Collision, we observed nearly one hundred people connecting to a phony Wi-Fi hotspot. And none of them were encrypting their traffic.

Connecting to a phony Wi-Fi hotspot can open the door to all kinds of problems. Hackers have been known to use similar setups to help them “sniff” people’s Internet traffic, allowing them to do things like read personal messages, log the websites people visit, and even steal passwords and other sensitive information.

So if you make a habit of using public Wi-Fi hotspots – whether you’re at a tech conference, an airport, a café, or a hotel – you should give Freedome a try to keep you and your private data safe and secure.

[Image by Erin Pettigrew | Flickr]

Adam Pilkey

28.04.16 1 min. read

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