5 Tips For Staying Safe On Public WiFi Networks

 Free Wi-Fi connections can be found almost anywhere these days. Free WiFi, obviously, is a good thing for the hundreds and thousands of people around the world who need public Wi-Fi to access the internet. But public Wifi also comes with a negative impact. Many people still think that they are still safe on public Wi-Fi networks. They think that public WiFi has a password, then it's secure. Turns out it was all wrong.

The fact that public WiFi is always open, makes it an easy target for hackers to access information sent to them. The WiFi vulnerability applies to every public network wherever you connect, whether it's at your favorite coffee shop, hotel, airport, on public transportation, or anywhere else.

But don't worry this time We will provide a tip to help you stay protected while using any public WiFi network.

How To Stay Safe On Public Wi-Fi Networks

1. Only Connect To Known Or Verified Networks

One of the easiest ways for hackers to steal your information is to create a public WiFi for you to connect to. Create public WiFi means that WiFi is in total control of everything you share on the network and systems. WiFi will also know who you are sharing information with.

Before connecting to a public WiFi, verify the SSID or Wi-Fi network name. It's best to make sure you only connect to networks you've connected to before. You need to make sure you check the WiFi name properly to make sure it's the same name you verified from someone else you know, and not a Wifi whose SSID looks like “monitortekn0” instead of “monitortekno.”

Always make sure that you turn off your sharing preferences whenever you connect to public WiFi. Your sharing preferences should always be turned off unless you need to share something with friends.

2. Use a VPN

Okay, for those who don't know what VPN means, VPN stands for Virtual Private Network. What a VPN does is help encrypt (secure) any data you send over the network, by using a tunnel or protected tunnels between the client and server.

At home or work, your data moves from your browser (phone or computer) to the online server (the company you are trying to connect to). With public WiFi, the server uses public WiFi. With a VPN, you'll log into your phone or computer and your signal goes from your computer through a protected tunnel (VPN), and then to the server you're connected to.

Apart from ensuring that your information is secured by the use of encryption, using a VPN also ensures that your IP address (Internet Protocol) is masked with its own IP. Since your IP is masked, it makes it more difficult for anyone snooping on the network to find your location. However, you should understand that while you can get a free VPN that will work for you, the best and most secure VPN clients are paid ones.

3. Only Visit Sites With HTTPS.

If for some reason you cannot have access to a VPN service. You should make sure that you only visit websites that have URLs that start with HTTPS. Https are important because they at least help ensure that any information you send between your browser and the connected server will be encrypted.

You can easily tell if a website is secure by looking at the top of your browser tabs for the Lock symbol indicating that the website is secure. You can also click on the padlock symbol to check if the SSL certificate is from a certificate authority.

Websites with SSL can be considered secure, at least in terms of being tamper evident with respect to the security of information sent over the network, through the website.

4. Always Activate Your Firewall

Firewalls can be annoying sometimes. Actually, if you are used to being connected to public WiFi all the time, you might want to keep that Firewall on. A firewall can help prevent your information from being stolen by hackers if they end up having unauthorized access to your computer via public WiFi.

Because the firewall acts as a wall that prevents your device from being attacked by data-based malware. Basically, a Firewall acts as a security guard checking every data that comes to your device over the network to ensure it is safe. A firewall will prevent malware attacks before they start. You can easily search for “Firewall” in your Windows Start menu to enable it.

5. Don't Share Sensitive Information

Sharing sensitive information can be a very tempting thing to do, but you should avoid it. Do not carry your transactions or operations on the internet that require you to provide sensitive information about yourself when using public networks.

The reason you don't store sensitive information on your phone or computer is because you can't feel safe when it comes to sharing your personal information on the internet. If you really need to share personal information, wait until you get back to your office or home, where you have access to a private network.

Conclusion

So those are the tips for Staying Safe On Public WiFi Networks? If for some reason you still need to share personal information while in a public space, make sure you ask your friend to turn on their mobile hotspot. Then you connect to your friend's mobile hotspot on your own it might take a few minutes, and once done you can easily switch back to public WiFi.