precaution while using wifi

Your home network should let you share files and devices easily. That way, you can do things like use your tablet to access files on your desktop computer. Sharing is great at home, but it s a liability on public Wi Fi. Considering that you probably don t have password protections on all of your files, literally anyone could browse through your computer. It doesn t take any special skills. When your computer is set to share, it s basically begging for other devices to take its information. If you have a Windows operating system, you can automatically block sharing by choosing the andpublicand network setting. You can also do this manually under Change Advanced Sharing Settings.

Most contemporary operating systems come with basic firewall software that will add a level of protection to your computer. Your computer is probably already setup to use its firewall software. You can double check to make sure you have this protection. Windows users should go to Control Panel, System and Security, and Firewall. Mac users can find firewall software under System Preferences, Security. Your personal firewall isn t going to keep out a determined, experienced hacker. But it does make it harder for someone to eavesdrop. That s often enough to persuade hackers that they should find an easier target. If you want more protection, avoid public networks by using InternetServiceProvider.net to find a reliable mobile service provider. You ll have a private connection to the Internet no matter where you go.

Only connect to the public Wi Fi when you need to use it. If you don t need it, disconnect or turn off your device. The more time you spend on the network, the more chances you give a hacker to break in and do something bad. It often helps to log off as soon as you ve gotten the information that you need. That way, you have the files you want without staying online for very long.

Fortunately most operating systems now default to the firewall being on.However when you re at home, you may use your router as your firewall and keep any software firewall on your machine disabled. That works well, as the router stops network based attacks before they ever reach your computer

The problem with open Wi Fi hotspots is that the wireless radio connection between your computer and the wireless access point is notencrypted. That means any data that you don t take care to ensure is already encrypted is transmitted in the clear, and anyone within range can eavesdrop and see it. Encryption, using WPA or WPA2, prevents that.

If you connect to a hotspot and the operating system on your machine requires a password for that to work, that s not an open Wi Fi hotspot, and you re probably OK. If on the other hand you can connect, and when you fire up your browser it first takes you to a web page that says andenter a passwordand (as in a hotel) or andcheck to accept our termsand (as in most other open hotspots) that is not encrypted, it s not secure; it is an open Wi Fi hotspot.

If you use a desktop email program such as Outlook, Outlook Express, Windows Mail, Windows Live Mail, Thunderbird or others, you must make certain that it s configured to use SSL/secure connections for sending and downloading email. Typically, that means that when you configure the email account in your email program, you need to: 1 Configure your POP3 or IMAP server for accessing your email selecting theandSSLand, andTLSand, or andSSL/TLSand security option, and usually a different port number. 2 Configure your SMTP server for sending email selecting andSSLand, andTLSand, or andSSL/TLSand security option, and usually a different port number such as 26,465, or 587 instead of the default 25. The exact settings and whether or not this is even possible depends entirely on your email service provider; you ll need to check with them to determine the correct settings to use. How you configure these settings, of course, depends on the email program that you use.

If you use a web based email service like Gmail, Outlook.com, Yahoo or others via your browser, you must make sure that it uses an httpS connection and that it keeps on using that httpS connection throughout your email session. Fortunately most of the major email services have moved to making https the standard, and sometimes the only available connection method. Accessing email using a plain http connection might well be the source of many open Wi Fi related hacks. I expect that people simply login to their web based email service without thinking about security and as a result, the username and password are visible to any hackers in range who care to look. Be careful. Some services will use https for only your login, which is insufficient as your email conversations thereafter could be viewed by others. Other services may andfall outand of https, reverting to unsecure http without warning.

Any and all web based (aka andcloudand) services that require you to login with a username and password should either be used only with https from start to finish, or should be avoided completely while you re using an open Wi Fi hotspot. With more and more services being provided on line, this is getting to be a larger problem. Using andthe cloudand is a great way to manage your digital life, but one of the key problems remains security. Using https is critical to that security when you re out and about.

Finally, it s important to keep the passwords of the accounts that you access different from each other and, of course, secure. That way, should one account be compromised by some stroke of misfortune, the hackers won t automatically gain access to your other accounts that they may then learn of.