How to securely connect to public Wi-Fi?

Public Wi-Fi hotspots, common in cafes, airports and other public places, can pose a great danger to users, exposing their devices to the risk of viruses and identity theft.

How can you securely connect to such networks? Experts recommend following several important rules.

Do not use Wi-Fi to send or receive sensitive personal information

Denis Kovalev, director of information security at the Digital Economy League, warns that public Wi-Fi networks should not be used to transmit or receive sensitive personal information. The lack of encryption on these networks makes them vulnerable to attacks by hackers who can intercept communications and gain access to user accounts, credit card information, and other personal data.

Wi-Fi in unknown and untrusted places

It is recommended to be especially careful with public Wi-Fi networks provided in unknown and untrusted places. Often scammers can engineer these access points with malicious code that will infect users' devices and steal their personal data. Therefore, it is recommended to give preference to trusted and secure networks.

Secure connection

First of all, check for the presence of the secure connection symbol before entering the network. Pay attention to the lock icon, which is usually displayed in browsers on the payment or authorization page. The presence of this symbol indicates that the connection is protected by encryption, which will make it more difficult for attackers to intercept the transmitted data.

Turn off the option to automatically connect to Wi-Fi on smartphones

Denis Kovalev also recommends disabling the option to automatically connect to Wi-Fi on smartphones. This will prevent you from accidentally connecting to insecure networks.