But if that’s your case, and you shoot public wifi, you should know that you are exposing yourself to hacking. The risk is minimal, but it exists and you need to know it to take steps to avoid problems.
Thanks to the strong competition among mobile phone companies, it is now quite inexpensive to have unlimited data or enough for our daily consumption. We usually no longer use public Wi-Fi networks with our iPhones, instead we leave them when we need to work with our iPad O MacBook.
You should therefore be aware that the use of a public Wi-Fi network has its risks in terms of the security it offers us. Although this is not usual, we must keep in mind that a Wi-Fi network is vulnerable to attacks and our data can be exposed.
A security researcher with a solid background in discovering Wi-Fi vulnerabilities has discovered new security holes in the wireless communication system. Some of them are part of the main security protocols of the wifi standard, that is why they are present in almost all devices from 1997.
The “Security holesCould be exploited to steal confidential data, control smart home devices and even take control of some computers. However, there are two pieces of good news. First of all, the real risks to ordinary users are very low. Second, it’s easy to protect yourself from even these mild threats.
Even the WPA3 protocol is vulnerable
These new “exploits” were discovered by the Belgian Mathy Vanhoef, network security technician. explains on its website that these new security vulnerabilities even affect Wi-Fi networks with WPA3 protocol, the one that is supposed to be the safest.
Vanhoef explains that three of the vulnerabilities discovered are design flaws in the Wi-Fi standard and therefore affect most devices. In addition to this, several other vulnerabilities caused by widespread programming errors on Wi-Fi enabled devices have been discovered. Experiences indicate that every Wi-Fi modem is affected by at least one vulnerability and that most devices suffer from multiple vulnerabilities at the same time.
Note that these security errors affect all modern Wi-Fi network security protocols, including the latest specification. WPA3. Even the original wifi security protocol, called WEP, is affected.
The risk is very low
Fortunately, Vanhoef is not at all alarmist. He says that risks in real life they are very smallas they depend on user interaction and network settings. For us to be attacked, the hacker must be connected to the same Wi-Fi network as us.
This means that if you’re connected to an airport’s Wi-Fi that’s a problem, but in a bar where there are five or ten people, chances are one of them is an expert hacker who wants to attack your device are minimal.
You can maximize your protection by using websites HTTPS as much as possible or use a VPN when you log in in public places.
