If you travel frequently for work related issues free Wi-Fi can simple things up say at an airport or hotel.
Free hot spots are seemingly a good idea because well, free is a great price and almost everyone uses the internet for work but Computer World covered a scary internet scam this year that may make you think twice about connecting.
According to Computer World the attack starts like this….
- You’re at the airport – you turn on your computer and search for a free hotspot.
- You find one! It’s even called “Free” internet, Wi-Fi, or something similar.
- You connect to this hot spot.
That’s the start of your troubles. The scam is that someone has set up their connection as a peer-to-peer network and allowed you to access their connection. However that allows them to access yours. Since you use the scammer’s connection he (or she) can see all the stuff you’re doing which includes passwords and log-ins for email, banking, and other personal items. Since you’re on the other guys connection he’s also going to be able to go in a grab files, steal your identity, or plant zombie software; yes zombie software is as bad as it sounds.
Yikes. PC World’s Techlog has a good post about the warning signs popping up about this and Computer World goes on for good four pages about how to protect yourself and your computer from an attack. I wouldn’t log on during that next business trip until you read what Computer World has to say.
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