Be careful if you connect to public WiFi

[POPOLUV]

Chatting with friends at coffee shops and when free WiFi is provided in various restaurants and hotels, it is risky for many. Especially those who use public WiFi from the bank's app or from various payment apps, many people are sitting there to steal data. If you can sit in a shop for hours using public WiFi, then of course it is risky, so we have to be very careful about this issue. Especially when paying online, we should not use public WiFi, but it is very good to use our own data. Public WiFi is always risky, so every user has to be careful, otherwise they can be a victim of fraud at any time.

I agree that connecting to public WiFi is very risky, now I have a question to ask regarding this issue of WiFi. What about those countries that use general WiFi should we also avoid using them while making transaction? Although we don't have public WiFi here in my country, each and everyone of us here make used of our own personal data so I'm wondering if those countries that has public WiFi is safe or they are at risk I would like to know or does it mean the risk is only for those that go around looking for where they can get free WiFi?

Any WiFi connection outside your family or friends should be thoroughly investigated before connecting your phone with it but for those countries that use general WiFi, i believe that such WiFi is provided free to serva the public and it will be monitor from not falling into a wrong hands and out side such reason, I'm advising anyone that might come across this discussion here to be very careful when rushing to connect to any WiFi that is not password because they can purposely keep a WiFi without password for people to connect with and immediately you are connected to such free WiFi, your phone will start malfunctioning because you just connected to a virus that will deny access to your phone.

[Ronsbit]

Its always risky to use public WiFi and worse if its anonymous i.e. we don't know who is providing an open WiFi in public place. Since we don't know the owner, we also don't know the intent behind offering a free WiFi in public place. These days mobile data is very much in range of majority of people and for security of your financial assets residing on your phone, always use mobile data or secure WiFi. We must avoid every WiFi which is freely available and everyone can easily connect to it.     

For the fact that you don't know and have idea who put up the public WiFi,  it's enough reasons for you not to connect to it because you do not know the true intentions of whomever set it up. It just might be a bait for you to fall into just because it is free of charge. Even government WiFi too is not safe. But if you choose to make use of it, avoid opening some sensitive Apps such as your bank app, notepad where you store sensitive information,  maybe picture's or videos which might also contain sensitive information. Always make sure you have data for browsing because sometimes you might get tempted to use it when you have an emergency which requires you to go online. Sometimes also to update Apps or your phone android version because such consumes data and in so doing you don't know what might be their target and you might just fall victim of their planned act.

[Stable090]

Any WiFi connection outside your family or friends should be thoroughly investigated before connecting your phone with it but for those countries that use general WiFi

Even family and friends are suppose to be investigated before you make use of their wifi. You are not suppose to trust all your friends just like that, you should trust only the ones you know they not going to harm you. Some people can do anything just to make money, they don’t care if you people are friend. I don’t make use of public wifi like that because of risk, mobile data isnt that expensive in my country here, so I can afford to buy mobile data always, I don’t really need any public Wi-Fi. Some people just like making use of free things, they don’t even consider the risk in it, if it’s free they going to use it.

[ChocolateBitcoinK]

Chatting with friends at coffee shops and when free WiFi is provided in various restaurants and hotels, it is risky for many. Especially those who use public WiFi from the bank's app or from various payment apps, many people are sitting there to steal data. If you can sit in a shop for hours using public WiFi, then of course it is risky, so we have to be very careful about this issue. Especially when paying online, we should not use public WiFi, but it is very good to use our own data. Public WiFi is always risky, so every user has to be careful, otherwise they can be a victim of fraud at any time.

I agree that connecting to public WiFi is very risky, now I have a question to ask regarding this issue of WiFi. What about those countries that use general WiFi should we also avoid using them while making transaction? Although we don't have public WiFi here in my country, each and everyone of us here make used of our own personal data so I'm wondering if those countries that has public WiFi is safe or they are at risk I would like to know or does it mean the risk is only for those that go around looking for where they can get free WiFi?

Any WiFi connection outside your family or friends should be thoroughly investigated before connecting your phone with it but for those countries that use general WiFi, i believe that such WiFi is provided free to serva the public and it will be monitor from not falling into a wrong hands and out side such reason, I'm advising anyone that might come across this discussion here to be very careful when rushing to connect to any WiFi that is not password because they can purposely keep a WiFi without password for people to connect with and immediately you are connected to such free WiFi, your phone will start malfunctioning because you just connected to a virus that will deny access to your phone.

It is not impossible that this type of problem can arise, this is true in the current reality. Through this, various attacks are attempted, personal information theft, phishing and many more. We can also learn from movies about these types of things, I have seen such incidents in many movies, although they are movies, but they exist in reality too, so it is always necessary to be careful. It is best to avoid public Wi-Fi when logging into banking or important accounts. Public Wi-Fi can be convenient, for daily work, but at the same time, due to this type of wifi, your personal information, your bank information and your device's wallet can be hacked, so use tow device and it is always better to keep the financial device separate and avoid giving any kind of public Wi-Fi connection to that device, then it will be better safe.

[Hazink]

Any WiFi connection outside your family or friends should be thoroughly investigated before connecting your phone with it but for those countries that use general WiFi, i believe that such WiFi is provided free to serva the public and it will be monitor from not falling into a wrong hands and out side such reason, I'm advising anyone that might come across this discussion here to be very careful when rushing to connect to any WiFi that is not password because they can purposely keep a WiFi without password for people to connect with and immediately you are connected to such free WiFi, your phone will start malfunctioning because you just connected to a virus that will deny access to your phone.

Home WiFi, public or whatever Wi-Fi you are using, as long as there are more people who have access to it other than you. You should be extremely careful with how advanced technology is getting nowadays. We can't tell to what length they can do damage to your gadgets through that access, as for free Wi-Fi, some phones if it's not turned off each time they walk close to area where Wi-Fi is on and not protected it will automatically connect itself which is the kind of danger some people face without even knowing.

[TokenTikas]

as for free Wi-Fi, some phones if it's not turned off each time they walk close to area where Wi-Fi is on and not protected it will automatically connect itself which is the kind of danger some people face without even knowing.

Free (WiFi) automatically connect when you enter their specific area if your phone has (WiFi) One. Suppose you have previously used a free (WiFi) and connected to it, but you could not go to that free (WiFi) area for a few days, so you could not connect.

Later, you went to that free (WiFi) area for some work and on the other hand, you did not know that you were automatically connected because your mobile phone has (WiFi) One. But your phone data has started to be stolen by automatically connecting. Although it seems like a coincidence, it can happen like this, so it is necessary to keep the (WiFi) section of the mobile phone turned off at all times and it is better to turn off (WiFi) after using it when necessary.

[Zorellian]

as for free Wi-Fi, some phones if it's not turned off each time they walk close to area where Wi-Fi is on and not protected it will automatically connect itself which is the kind of danger some people face without even knowing.

Yeah, if you enter somewhere that your wifi has connected before, it will save the password and everything automatically, if you return to the place and you didn’t delete the information about it, it will automatically reconnect because of the settings of the phone and the WiFi so if you don’t want to course any problems for yourself, you just have to off your WiFi or delete the information you have with the WiFi you connected. That will less facing any kind of danger. And you might not remember that you have connected with the WiFi before you can just go through your Wi-Fi settings and see anything connected automatically and disconnect right away.

[kawetsriyanto]

People who are open-minded, ready to learn, ready to change will change their practice. They even do their own research for learning after getting reminders from you. In contrast people who are close-minded, are not ready to learn and change themselves will maintain their bad habit.

You're right. Open-minded people must be serious to learn it once they see warning from other people. But there are also people who don't care because they aren't open-minded or they are typical of people who only start learning when they are experiencing it themselves. I'm not surprised with this fact because I have seen varied characteristics of people around me.

You are kindful by reminding it to your friends many times but it's their responsibility for changes or not.

Indeed. However, I have done my best to remind them at least. So, it is no longer my responsibility once they keep doing the mistake.

You can throw some resources for them to learn too.
Why privacy matters?
VPN, Tor & Networks guides.
Awesome privacy.
The value of privacy.

Thanks mate for sharing the resources. 

[Obari]

When I rent hotel room which is the place I noticed I am being offered free WiFi, I just decline it. I have enough data already and it is a huge amount of data.

If one can afford to pay for an hotel room, why can't they afford to buy data but rather would prefer to use public WiFi?
I can remember back then, the only thing I enjoyed using public WiFi for was to download movies and I would
Just download as much as I want and that's it.

Op thank you for drawing our attention to this again as it would serve as a remainder to those who already forgot never to be careless with their safety while using public networks it better still avoid using it entirely .

[jossiel]

Yeah, if you enter somewhere that your wifi has connected before, it will save the password and everything automatically, if you return to the place and you didn’t delete the information about it, it will automatically reconnect because of the settings of the phone and the WiFi so if you don’t want to course any problems for yourself, you just have to off your WiFi or delete the information you have with the WiFi you connected. That will less facing any kind of danger. And you might not remember that you have connected with the WiFi before you can just go through your Wi-Fi settings and see anything connected automatically and disconnect right away.

That feature is the forget.

It's a good practice that if you're a fan of connecting wifis to different areas and you doesn't bring your own, it's best to 'forget' when you're leaving that area.

We will never know if an intruder is connected to the same connection and that's why it's best to not just connect into it.

[JiiBs]

Any WiFi connection outside your family or friends should be thoroughly investigated before connecting your phone with it but for those countries that use general WiFi

Even family and friends are suppose to be investigated before you make use of their wifi. You are not suppose to trust all your friends just like that, you should trust only the ones you know they not going to harm you. Some people can do anything just to make money, they don’t care if you people are friend.

How do you come to terms with investigating a family member before making use of their WiFi? I mean, the fact that you have a friend or call this individual a friend or have siblings that do count as family, you up to know the person to a large extent on either, this is someone you are comfortable about or not.

Some persons might hide their true nature for sure but, to have known someone for a long time, you would be able to ascertain the extent at which you can trust that person and what you can trust them with.

When you have the impression that, it’s not safe connecting to someone’s WiFi, then you should consider the cost and what it would take you to make that service available and either do that or leave it be.

[Ronsbit]

When I rent hotel room which is the place I noticed I am being offered free WiFi, I just decline it. I have enough data already and it is a huge amount of data.

If one can afford to pay for an hotel room, why can't they afford to buy data but rather would prefer to use public WiFi?
I can remember back then, the only thing I enjoyed using public WiFi for was to download movies and I would
Just download as much as I want and that's it.

Op thank you for drawing our attention to this again as it would serve as a remainder to those who already forgot never to be careless with their safety while using public networks it better still avoid using it entirely .

You made a point here, of one can use free WiFi, they could use it to watch movie or download it to their phone or system. I remembered doing so years back during my university day's at school. There is a public WiFi close to my school that I go close to at night to use. I use it for research and also downloading of materials which I would read after which when I am done, I begin download seasonal movies and and music.

[ImGenius]

Even family and friends are suppose to be investigated before you make use of their wifi. You are not suppose to trust all your friends just like that, you should trust only the ones you know they not going to harm you. Some people can do anything just to make money, they don’t care if you people are friend. I don’t make use of public wifi like that because of risk, mobile data isnt that expensive in my country here, so I can afford to buy mobile data always, I don’t really need any public Wi-Fi. Some people just like making use of free things, they don’t even consider the risk in it, if it’s free they going to use it.

Well, Not everyone need to be cautious about their family but if inside your family or friends have hackers then you should stop using their WiFi. I have WiFi installed in my room but I still use mobile internet. Although the monthly internet cost increases a little I don't want to give my device access or any data to a hacker.

We can't be cautious always that's why it's better to never keep cryptos in a phone that is used for browsing online. A HW is better in that case.

[Donneski]

When I rent hotel room which is the place I noticed I am being offered free WiFi, I just decline it. I have enough data already and it is a huge amount of data.

If one can afford to pay for an hotel room, why can't they afford to buy data but rather would prefer to use public WiFi?
I can remember back then, the only thing I enjoyed using public WiFi for was to download movies and I would
Just download as much as I want and that's it.

Op thank you for drawing our attention to this again as it would serve as a remainder to those who already forgot never to be careless with their safety while using public networks it better still avoid using it entirely .

Sometimes, these people that who use the WiFi of hotels they lodge in doesn't do so because they can't afford buy data or subscribe to their personal internet networks, they do it because they wanna save cost and in most cases, aren't even aware of the risks involved. They don't know that through these public internet connections, their personal data can be exposed. They just want to connect and browse the internet.

[satscraper]

~

If public Wi-Fi supports WPA3, and you use it to connect to network along with VPN tunnel and HTTPS everywhere, then you are safe. Otherwise, I wouldn't risk it either.

P.S. If your internal Wi-Fi module does not support WPA3, you may attach WPA3 USB Wi-Fi adapter ^{such as the ASUS USB-AX55 Nano AX1800 or any other adapter with similar specs} to your machine.

[tech30338]

When I rent hotel room which is the place I noticed I am being offered free WiFi, I just decline it. I have enough data already and it is a huge amount of data.

If one can afford to pay for an hotel room, why can't they afford to buy data but rather would prefer to use public WiFi?
I can remember back then, the only thing I enjoyed using public WiFi for was to download movies and I would
Just download as much as I want and that's it.

Op thank you for drawing our attention to this again as it would serve as a remainder to those who already forgot never to be careless with their safety while using public networks it better still avoid using it entirely .

Sometimes, these people that who use the WiFi of hotels they lodge in doesn't do so because they can't afford buy data or subscribe to their personal internet networks, they do it because they wanna save cost and in most cases, aren't even aware of the risks involved. They don't know that through these public internet connections, their personal data can be exposed. They just want to connect and browse the internet.

If you have important things in your laptop, or wallet for bitcoin, i would not recommend to connect it in their network, never open important things over the internet with a hotel internet unless you are using device to make your connection secure, things should always to be consider like your data, if you can't protect it outside better not do things that might expose it to the network or over the internet with the hotel connection because you don't know if this was setup properly by the IT of the hotels.

[Emjay24]

Any WiFi connection outside your family or friends should be thoroughly investigated before connecting your phone with it but for those countries that use general WiFi, i believe that such WiFi is provided free to serva the public and it will be monitor from not falling into a wrong hands and out side such reason, I'm advising anyone that might come across this discussion here to be very careful when rushing to connect to any WiFi that is not password because they can purposely keep a WiFi without password for people to connect with and immediately you are connected to such free WiFi, your phone will start malfunctioning because you just connected to a virus that will deny access to your phone.

Many people have been messed up by family and friends, in fact if you're targeted locally, the best people to execute such tasks are family and friends because naturally you wouldn't suspect any danger, you shouldn't trust anyone. I've heard stories where husband used wife's retirement savings to gamble, and in my neighborhood, a boy drained his mom's account since he knew he secret pin. We must take privacy and security seriously, unless the network setup is done by you, you shouldn't connect any device that has your financial apps to it, not to mention logging into those apps over non-private networks.

[Issa56]

Later, you went to that free (WiFi) area for some work and on the other hand, you did not know that you were automatically connected because your mobile phone has (WiFi) One. But your phone data has started to be stolen by automatically connecting.

You can stop that from happening. After connecting to a wifi and you are done using it, just tap on it and click on forget, when next you are going to use the same Wi-Fi, it’s going to request for your password before you will be able to connect with it, thats going to stop you from getting connected to Wi-Fi without you being aware of it. Like my system, if I don’t click on auto connect when connecting to a Wi-Fi, even when am close to the Wi-Fi it’s not going to connect automatically.

But the best thing to do is try as much as possible to avoid public Wi-Fi, because maybe the first time which you going to use it when they going attack you, some people are just so interested in free things that’s why they fall victims. Some people don’t have something serious to do, they having mobile data on their phone, but they still going to connect to public Wi-Fi.

[Zackz5000]

Your security will be your responsibility so make sure that you can be careful if you connect to public WiFi and don't login to anything personal.

PS: I am sorry if this is not the right board. Please tell me and I will move it to the right one.

Using a VPN could be helpful if you must use a public Wi-Fi. It could help encrypt your data and hide your browsing activity. When your IP address is hidden and your activity is obscured, it could be difficult to trace your history. However, avoidance is cheaper, safer, and easier than fixing the damage. It would be better to use your personal connections than to depend on public Wi-Fi where you can become exposed.

And another security tip for using public WiFi is to make use of two-factor authentication. If someone succeeds in obtaining your login details, they will not be able to access your account with just those details because, after the first step of logging in with a password, a second security step of two-factor authentication verification will be required. However, one needs to be extremely careful in protecting the authentication security app because if the backup code is exposed, it is possible to bypass this security step.

You are correct two-factor authentication will really improve your security mostly when you are on a public wifi where every login information could just be at risk. But don’t forget it is just as good and better for you to safe and guild that second factor. Keep your backup codes like you would keep your password code just keep everything private with in your self and don’t keep them any how, you can even keep them off line too. Using a security key is usually more safe, we should also know that every part must be well guilded.