Travelling usually means that you are going to be flying somewhere and with all the entertainment options on our phones, why wouldn't we want to connect to the Wi-Fi? The fact that most places make it free now (as long as you give them your email address) it makes that much more enticing. This also makes it very popular with people that want to hack your device or steal your information. Due to this, you have to be very careful about what you do while killing time at the airport.
If you don't think that people pay attention to things like this, cybersecurity firm Coronet has actually taken a look at the majority of the major US airports. They found that Chicago's Midway International is the least susceptible to hackers but they also put together a list of the most vulnerable airports:
- San Diego
- John Wayne Airport, Santa Ana (Disneyland)
- William P. Hobby Airport, Houston
- Southwest Florida International Airport, Fort Myers
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Newark
- Dallas Love Field
- Phoenix Sky Harbor
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Charlotte Douglas, North Carolina
- Detroit Metropolitan
- Boston Logan
When you do feel the urge to connect to public Wi-Fi, whether it be at the local Starbucks or at the airport make sure that you are safe. Don't type in your log in into any sites, don't allow your cloud to upload personal information, use a VPN (extra encryption), don't do any online shopping, wait until you get to a secure network or a physical bank before checking your funds / credit card, use secure sites (the ones with the little lock beside the http://), and if you are using a laptop make sure you have a firewall.
ALSO, do not plug your items in to charge in any USB dongles at the airport as some of these are spoofed which means that they are connected to a wire or the actual dongle themselves is hacked so people can log into your device and access everything you have on it. Same goes for any public location that provides free charging services.
