TV shows and movies are rife with scenes of bad guys compromising wireless devices like cell phones, tablets and laptops. It’s very easy to dismiss these scenes as “movie magic”, or “it’s just a movie”; but the reality is that it doesn’t take a lot of technical knowledge to compromise someone’s device if they are using public WiFi. And for anyone who wants to learn, free tutorials are available online and any required equipment is easily purchased from eBay or Amazon.
For these reasons, we say this so frequently that our clients’ eyes now glaze over at the mere mention of it:
Use a virtual private network (VPN) when connecting to any public WiFi
(i.e. Starbucks, airports, hotels, etc.)
So, it’s refreshing to find a recent article on a well-known tech site that echoes our sentiments.
If your company already has a VPN to remotely access company resources, it’s simply now about getting in the habit of connecting to it whenever you’re out of the office. Which, since March of 2020, has been always. If your company doesn’t have a VPN for you to use, then:
(a) We hope that company resources are secured by other means, and
(b) We definitely recommend following the advice in this article about signing up for a 3rd-party paid VPN service.
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