Public Wi-fi hotspots?
QIn this box in Issue 630 you explained to Nick Duffy why public Wi-fi hotspots are less safe than home Wi-fi. I wonder if any public Wi-fi hotspots can be trusted? I’m a BT customer and I sometimes connect to one of the company’s Wi-fi hotspots in the city centre where I live. I do this to check email and read news online, while I have a coffee. Is there a difference between a public Wi-fi hotspot from a big company like BT and the others you talked about, such as one provided by a café? I have to log in with my BT account details. Only I know these, so is this kind of hotspot safer? George Mann
AThere isn’t really any difference: a public hotspot from BT, or any other bigname provider, is still a public hotspot. However, in some respects, connecting to the Wi-fi hotspot of a ‘trusted’ brand could actually present more risk, not less. We know that’s unexpected, so we’d better explain.
Again, it boils down to trust and control – but from a slightly different perspective. Connect to a big-name public hotspot and you can have some confidence that your personal data is handled responsibly. In other words, you can trust BT hotspots to be wellmanaged, just as you trust the company with your home internet connection.
But the trouble is this: can you be sure that a public hotspot purporting to be from ‘BT’ is actually controlled by BT? It’s easy to set up a network with a name that’s the same as a real BT public hotspot. You could do it yourself in seconds with a smartphone’s personal hotspot. Suddenly, your phone is the ‘BT’ public hotspot. It’s not a whole lot more difficult to create a fake login website that looks just like one from BT, or any other company.
We’re not suggesting that every location is awash with scammers broadcasting spoofed networks and fake login pages, but the possibility is there – so it’s just another reason to be wary of public Wi-fi hotspots.
Want to know the difference between technical terms? Email noproblem@ computeractive.co.uk