Top 7 Safety Tips You Should Follow When Using Public Wi-Fi – Free Wi-Fi! – These things work magically at present. We all love free Wi-Fi, and in most cases, we get access to free Wi-Fi in restaurants, malls, hotels, and other public places. It means all those are public Wi-Fi, which comes with a number of cyber threats.
Whenever you are connecting with free Wi-Fi, you are actually exposing your online presence or activities to all those cybercriminals with evil intentions.
That does not mean we will stop using public Wi-fi. No! It is best for watching online movies and playing games from ipiratebay.
Here, what we can do is take some utmost safety precautions for securing our online activities and building barriers to some of the obvious cyber attacks.
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Top 7 Safety Tips You Should Follow When Using Public Wi-Fi
Just because of the cyber threats, we can not refrain from using public Wi-Fi. What we can do is, take some safety precautions to ensure our digital safety while using public Wi-Fi. Here are some tested and proven tips you can use for having secure and safe browsing.
1. Get A VPN
The easiest and effective way of securing your online activities along with your online data is using a VPN. VPN or virtual private network is well known for masking your IP address. Apart from that, VPN also protects your online activities.
When you are using public Wi-Fi, you should go with effective VPN software, which will secure all your online data from those cybercriminals.
2. Turn Off Sharing
It is totally fine to share your files, printers, or library or even allow any remote login from any other computer on your Wi-Fi network in the privacy of your own home network. But when you are connected to a public network, you have to be extra cautious.
Here, you have to disable the setting. So, instead of keeping sharing on, it is always advised to turn off sharing mode when your device is on a public network.
3. Use HTTPS
Usual websites transfer content pieces in plain regular texts. So, all those content pieces become easy targets for cybercriminals who have already hacked the network. In order to encrypt data transfer, many websites use HTTPS.
You should never rely on web services or websites to ensure your safety. With a browser extension, HTTPS, you can develop this encrypted connection, and you should absolutely go for it.
4. Confirm The Network Name
Often, hackers themselves set up fake Wi-Fi networks to attract unwitting public Wi-Fi users. The restaurant network might not be with the name of the restaurant. This way, you might end up logging into a network, which is set by cybercriminals.
So, we will always advise you to double-check the name of the Wi-Fi network before you hit the connect option.
5. Avoid Automatically Connecting To Wi-Fi Hotspot
We have just mentioned in the earlier section that cybercriminals often set up fake Wi-Fi networks to access your data and online information. We have also advised you to connect with any public W-Fi network before tapping on the connect option.
In order to prevent your device from getting connected with those fake Wi-Fi networks, you also have to disable the automatic connect option to any available Wi-Fi network.
6. Utilize Two-factor Authentication
Two-factor authentication ensures more enhanced and improved security by utilizing two pieces of information in order to log into an account. Here, one information is something you have, and the other one is something you know.
Accessing any account using an OTP is one of the most popular two-factor authentications. This is a really effective way of securing your connection, but you have to ensure that you are not sharing the code with anyone else.
7. Protect Your Password
For different accounts, it is always advised to create and use different passwords. Every password should be used and hard to crack. When you are creating the password, you have to ensure that you are creating a strong or very strong password.
Here, you also have to ensure that you are not saving the password online or digitally. Instead of that, save them offline and keep them in a protected place.
Have A Safe Browsing
Just by following the above-mentioned tips and tricks, you can actually secure your online information pieces and digital data when you are using a public Wi-Fi network. Plus, do not access any network that is available.