News - Security Issues

How to stay safe while surfing a public hotspot

With Starbucks now offering free wi-fi to its customers, it's probably a good idea to refresh our memory on some of the best practices for using an unsecured, public wi-fi network. Free public wi-fi is a great convenience, but it comes with risks. Hackers using the same unsecured network can easily capture your data if you don't take the necessary precautions.

Lifehacker.com points out the most important settings you should tweak on your laptop before connecting to a public network. While most of us would probably know to enable our firewall, Lifehacker goes on to mention some other important, lesser-known tips such as using a virtual private network (VPN) which lets you route all your on-line activity through a secure, private network. Check out the full article at http://lifehacker.com/5576927/how-to-stay-safe-on-public-wi+fi-networks.