The spread of wireless networks from our homes to coffee shops, libraries, planes, and trains has been steady and expansive.
Free, public wifi is available in stores and on public transit. Paid wifi on airplanes offers users access without a code once they pay, and Amtrak has expanded free wifi into more and more of its trains. The Los Angeles Metro is expected to offer free wireless to passengers by 2016. Harlem has expanded a free wifi hotspot that is now the largest in the country, and frequently free, open internet is becoming an expectation.
But how do you protect your data and personal information on a network that large and minimally maintained? How secure are free wifi hotspot networks?
Why are they so unprotected, and how should they be managed to make them as effective and secure as possible? The U.S. trails behind advances to public wireless internet that have already been put into effect in Europe and Japan – how can we catch up and make American networks most useful and safe?
Guest:
Chester Wisniewski, Senior Security Advisor at Sophos Canada