A Forbes study found that 40% of respondents had their information compromised while using public Wi-Fi. The study found that only 23% of people think public Wi-Fi is safe. However 35% access public Wi-Fi three to four times a month with 23% using it to cut down on cellular data usage. 20% of people use public Wi-Fi to make financial transactions and the most common places people use public Wi-Fi is at restaurants and hotels. Four in ten people have had their information compromised while using public Wi-Fi with the majority of compromises happening on airports or restaurant public Wi-Fi. The convenience of public Wi-Fi may come at a price with attackers trying to steal sensitive information using approaches like Man-In-The-Middle (MITM) Attacks, Eavesdropping, using Rogue Hotspots, spoofing, session hijacking, malware distribution and login page phishing. Users need to take protective measures to safeguard against those threat, such as avoiding accessing sensitive services such as banking platforms, turning off sharing setting on the device, using a VPN and forgetting the network after disconnecting to avoid automatic reconnections.
https://thehackernews.com/2023/08/the-hidden-dangers-of-public-wi-fi.html
https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/public-wifi-risks/
This segment was created for the It’s 5:05 podcast