Hackers Explain Hidden Dangers of Public Wi-Fi and How to Avoid Them

"Public places make a good cover for hackers who can easily set up malicious hotspots and steal people's data. As an example, Mr. Kim, who lives in Seoul, suffered a personal information leak while using public Wi-Fi at a cafe," says Sungwoo Cho, Korean Country Manager at NordVPN. "Public places make a good cover for hackers who can easily set up malicious hotspots and steal people's data. As an example, Mr. Kim, who lives inSeoul, suffered a personal information leak while using public...

"Public places make a good cover for hackers who can easily set up malicious hotspots and steal people's data. As an example, Mr. Kim, who lives in Seoul, suffered a personal information leak while using public Wi-Fi at a cafe," says Sungwoo Cho, Korean Country Manager at NordVPN.

Daniel Markuson, digital privacy expert at NordVPN, discussed the risks of unsafe public Wi-Fi with a couple of hackers in closed online forums.

What makes public Wi-Fi unsafe

From the NordVPN study, hackers agreed on two common points that can make any public Wi-Fi hotspot vulnerable. These are poor router configuration and a lack of a strong password. They claim it can take a couple of minutes to start peeking at confidential information sent from a device connected to an unsecured Wi-Fi.

If you're lucky, the snooper may just read your browsing activity. But in the worst-case scenario, they can steal all your sensitive information, including passwords and credit card details.

As your device is constantly looking for trusted Wi-Fi networks, stalkers can use these connection requests to find out where you live. It's enough to type it on a public website that creates heatmaps of Wi-Fi hotspots, such as Wigle.net.

How to stay safe

Daniel Markuson, digital privacy expert at NordVPN, provides some useful tips on what you should do to protect your devices and the information they hold.

NordVPN: https://nordvpn.com/ko/