How can I prevent someone from hacking my computer on an open coffee shop wifi?
You can check the answer of the people under the question at Quora “coffee shops with wifi near me“
How can I prevent someone from hacking my computer on an open coffee shop wifi?
You can check the answer of the people under the question at Quora “coffee shops with wifi near me“
Some public networks are insecure. And some more secure than others. That said, many of us use free WiFi or coffee shop WiFi, or public Wifi, in short bursts here and there, and don’t consider it high risk. But I wouldn’t do online banking in a coffee shop.
It’s unlikely that you’re being targeted by malicious data thieves while surfing on your iPhone or computer from a coffee shop with halfway decent router security setup. But if you use public networks a lot, you might consider getting a VPN.
There are lots of VPN (virtual private network) apps, and services. I’m not going to advocate any particular one, or list them, if you want to learn more, explore more about it, using a search engine.
I use a VPN. Partly because I travel internationally. Lots of people use VPNs.
Keep your browser up-to-date, and use certificate pinning.
To hack your actual computer, it has to be listening. Most laptops aren’t – they aren’t running any server software.
If you run a remote access server like SSH server or VNC, with the password set to “1234”, you’ll probably be hacked on the internet. But a coffee shop network is limited to people physically nearby. You’d probably have to have no password at all to let them in first try. If you have network shares set up, so that anyone on the local network is allowed write access, that might do it, or if you run an old unpatched operating system like XP that has a known vulnerability someone might get in. It’s still highly unlikely that anyone could hack a computer that’s not running any services – it’s more common to find a vulnerability in a server than in the core IP stack itself. The IP stack in any system that’s been used on the internet has been subjected to millions of attack attempts over the years. It’s pretty well tested.
What’s easier to hack is your connection – if you logged in to a server using an insecure protocol like rlogin or telnet or ftp, they could get your password. No-one does that anymore, since the 1990’s. I hope.
One approach would be to set up a fake wifi access point that looks like the coffee shop ID but isn’t, then get you to connect to that. Then they can mess with your routing and DNS, so that when you think you’re connected to Facebook you’re not, it’s a clone, and will get your password. You can avoid that by using certificate pinning, or manually check SSL certificates – if the real one is issued by DigiCert and has a fingerprint of BD:25:8C:1F:62:A4:A6:D9:CF:7D:98:12:D2:2E:2F:F5:7E:84:FB:36, but what you’re connected to doesn’t, it’s a fake.
All public networks are not equal. Some of these are vulnerable . A few public networks are insecure. Many users use free WiFi provided to them by coffee shops and other service providers as public Wifi.
Credit image: Scam Warning
There remains a high risk of hacking. This is why you should not log in to any important financial website and make an online payment, using any public WiFi network.
They might install any spyware or malicious data thieves to steal your password, user ID, etc. However, a security setting becomes worthwhile for you. You might think of getting a VPN for secure connection and browsing. Thus, you can prevent your computer from hacking.
Hope it helps,
OKportal Technology