Public Wi-Fi hotspots not secure says BBC
Posted by Geoff Slaughter - 29/10/09 at 11:10 pm
So, we were sat down having our dinner tonight and enjoying the BBC's weekly snapshot of Anne Robinson's age-reversal (we love you really Anne), and found ourselves watching the segment on public Wi-Fi security with interest. The investigation by the BBC's flagship consumer show revealed that many of the thousands of public Wi-Fi hot spots around the UK represent easy pickings to hackers.
BT Openzone, The Cloud, and T-Mobile were all named by Watchdog as Wi-Fi service providers whose wireless networks were at risk of attack. As the BBC, for reasons presumably of public interest and security, they did not reveal the actual method of attack; but the full written responses from the three Wi-Fi service providers (and indeed by some of the comments posted by BBC viewers so far) provide greater insight into the what the BBC-sourced security expert was up to during the course of the investigation. The full story and responses can be found here at the BBC Watchdog website
Digital Choices Verdict
None of this will be news to the digitally enlightened and security-savvy, a number of which have been quick to criticise the BBC for failing to weight more of the segment to the practical steps users can take to protect themselves when using a Wi-Fi access point. Anyone who connects their computer to the Internet runs the risk of revealing information that they would rather remained private, the question as always is the level of risk. For many, the use of a Wi-Fi hotspot (with or without additional security measures) will be a trouble-free experience providing of course that the connection is stable and at the speed that a user requires, but for some the consequences of a hacker attack can be pretty severe, so it's important to play safe.
"If you can't drive a car, then you shouldn't be behind the wheel."
Sounds simple enough and reasonable to most we would hope. In the case of computer users then why should we feel any different? Well, at Digital Choices we believe in technology and access for all, but the issue of behaving responsibility and diligently online is a very important one. In the case of businesses and organisations a legal duty exists to protect and secure your personal and private data and the threat of consequences looms over those that do not obey the rule of law. No such duty exists with your friends, family and other contacts however so if their email account gets hacked, then brace yourself for all the spam and other nefarious attempts to access your computer that can follow.
That sound pretty judgemental, so what can I do?
The short answer is more than you do now. An up to date virus scanner and properly configured software firewall are a very basic start to improving your computer's own security but you'll need to know more if you're going to use a public Wi-Fi access point. A quick search on the web will provide some answers; here's a pretty good guide to get you started but read around and you'll find there's quite a bit of help out there.
October 30th, 2009 at 8:52 am
Its very easy to take the high ground on security when you understand the risks and know what to do about it. WiFi providers though should insist that users install additional security (and make it easy for them to do this) when they use their networks.The key here awareness and education and at least the BBC has done at least half the job by raising the issue.