4 Threat Behind Free WiFi

Cafe, campus, and various public places now widely equipped with WiFi facilities. Exciting indeed can surf in a public place, especially for free. But on the other hand there are a number of threats that shade.

Here are 4 of them are quoted based security firm ESET report:

1. Evil twin login interception

This is a network set up by hackers to masquerade as official WiFi hot spot.

2. 0-day OS / app attack attempts

Known also as a threat attacks through exploits that are not known.

3. Sniffing

Intercept effort to achieve both software and hardware and computer to log traffic in a network.

4. Data leakage (man-in-the-middle attack)

Cybercrime perpetrators are able to modify the network traffic and make the user unaware as if he was conducting transactions with banks. In reality, the data sent by the user sent to computer criminals

Associated with the level of security in public spaces that provide wireless internet access, Yudhi Kukuh, Technical Director of PT. Prosperita-ESET Indonesia added that when users purchase online or conduct financial transactions, make sure the web address begins with 'https' instead of 'http'. This is to ensure that the data traffic that uses the web address will be encrypted.

"So it needs to be underlined that the ease of not serve as the primary reference when in public areas with hotspots - always use the mode of early warning and notice of any warnings given," he said, in his statement on Friday (08/05/2011).

Until now WiFi access is estimated to have been used by more than 700 million people, with more than 4 million points of hotspots around the world. While WiFi routers manufactured each year by 800 million units.

Based on the findings of global research project that was launched by Online Security Brand Tracker, presented by InSites Consulting and analysis of United Consultants, said nearly half the world's Internet users connect to the Internet most often with a portable device. Where the notebook became the most popular devices (41%), followed netbooks (3%), smartphone (2%) and tablet computers (1%).