Lots of us now take our internet connections with us when we travel. We can use phones, tablets and laptops to carry on working wherever we are. However have you ever considered how safe using that internet connection in a coffee shop or shopping mall is? After all it is important to remember that when we use an access point to go online, we are effectively routing all our traffic through the device that is offering us that connection. So effectively the question is do we trust the owners and administrators of that device with all our data – including any username, passwords that we may use whilst connected.
Now I’m not suggesting that every internet access point in your local cafe is a front for cyber thieves, although a small dose of paranoia is a healthy thing. However the fact remains that anyone with administrative access to that device could gain access to any account that you used whilst connected.
So before you check your paypal account, email or online banking you should perhaps think again about where you are connected and is it safe. There’s no legislation to ensure your connection is secure and in fact nothing more than an implied duty of care.
Remember your basic internet connection provides little security against this sort of attack. The protection afforded by HTTP or SSL is negligible in these situations as your connection can be intercepted even when supposedly using these secure connections.
So what’s the solution, for many of us who travel all the time with work – it’s not an option to simply wait until we reach a trusted network. Well firstly if you work for a big company who allow you to access your corporate network from the internet, then chances are you have access to a VPN client. This is an encrypted tunnel designed to keep your data and connection secure across the internet. You should use this whenever you are travelling to browse the internet not just to access you document store.
For others there are options to purchase commercial VPN solutions, look at services which allow you to buy IP address as they are commonly secure VPN solutions which can encrypt your connection.
For Further Information
Online IP Changer – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgS3Wf3uPn8
About the author
