Public WiFi Offers Convenience, Requires Caution

Editor’s note: October is National Cybersecurity Awareness Month, and each week Blue Sky will be featuring a story about cybersecurity and related issues to highlight the importance of digital safety in airports and beyond.

You’ve packed, woken up early and arrived at the airport with plenty of time. But you forgot to pay the credit card bill at home.

Do you risk late fees and interest, or do you log on to unsecure public WiFi to pay the bill, transmitting personal and financial data over a network accessible to anyone in the world?

These days, you can confidently pay the bill, most experts say. Just don’t make it a habit.

Encryption and other firewalls have made public WiFi far safer than it once was. But it’s still vulnerable to aggressive hackers, cybersecurity experts say, so people should know a few things before using it.

“I would worry more about public computers, say, at a hotel business center than I do about public WiFi,” said Nick Barendt, a computer science professor and executive director of the Institute for Smart, Secure and Connected Systems (ISSACS) and co-executive director of the Internet of Things (IoT) Collaborative at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.

“Occasionally, you have to use WiFi to do something like pay a bill,” he said.

Simple steps minimize risk

Barendt and other experts say users can take proactive measures that minimize the risk of having personal data hacked:

• Avoid rogue WiFi access points. Fake WiFi access can be deceptive and often includes the name of the business or facility that nearby WiFi users might know. If there’s any doubt, ask an employee at the location for the legitimate WiFi access point, the connection’s name and its IP address.

“Scammers are effective at creating websites that look real. You’ve got to be careful. Fake access points often look like the real thing,” said Martin Weiss, associate dean for academic affairs and research at the University of Pittsburgh’s